# 888 UP colonies lack sewerage network, NGT told 2026-08-22T03:07:57+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet Uttar Pradesh's chief secretary has told the National Green Tribunal that 888 unauthorised colonies across six districts have no sewerage network, affecting about four lakh people. The data, filed in an affidavit dated April 28, covers Ghaziabad, Meerut, Baghpat, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Shamli. In Ghaziabad alone, the colonies generate over 31 million litres per day of sewage that flows into untapped drains. The NGT bench, chaired by Justice Prakash Shrivastava, noted that while 3,618.4 km of sewer line has been laid connecting over 5.16 lakh households, no clear timeline was given for several districts. The tribunal directed the chief secretary to provide a firm timeline in the next affidavit. It also slammed the UP Pollution Control Board for filing a response that showed almost all sewage treatment plants fail to meet coliform norms, and ordered the board to name officers against whom complaints were filed under the Water Act. The next hearing is on November 2. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The NGT is tightening oversight on Hindon river pollution by demanding district-wise deadlines and officer accountability. The 888 colonies are unauthorised, meaning they were built without municipal approval, often on farmland, and local bodies have long resisted extending services to them. The real cost of retrofitting sewer lines in such dense, unplanned settlements can run into hundreds of crores per district. Watch for the chief secretary's November affidavit: if it names specific completion dates, the tribunal may set a compliance calendar, or it could impose fines on defaulting officers. ## Coverage - timesnownews.com Straight PTI wire copy: no framing beyond reporting NGT proceedings and affidavit details. This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Ghaziabad, Hindon River, Meerut, National Green Tribunal, UPPCB, Uttar Pradesh Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/888-up-colonies-lack-sewerage-network-ngt-told/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/888-up-colonies-lack-sewerage-network-ngt-told/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/