TREATMENT PLANT DESIGN BY ACADEMICS

It is a well proven fact that a Treatment Plant cannot be designed by the Book alone ( see : Designing by the Book ).  Equally true is the fact that a Treatment Plant cannot be designed by an Academic, who teaches just by the Book. Lack of exposure to the real world outside the confines of the class room and the campus puts blinkers on these good souls, who would rather turn to page 43, Equation 4.1.3 in the Book, rather than use plain horse sense.  This is one such story of an academic project, which sucked in not only the Guru, but also his equally culpable, blindfolded Chelas into a morass of academic fraud and fudge, all too common in India.

TREATMENT PLANT DESIGN BY ACADEMICS

Very few of you would have heard of Dattaram Advertising Pvt. Ltd., in Bombay.  Fewer still will know that this advertising agency is over 100 years old : yes, 100 years, and still going strong !

 http://www.dattaram.com/inside.html

After I moved to Bangalore in the year 1986, to set up Ecotech, my first assignment for designing a wastewater treatment plant was for NP Chewing Gums in Kaval Byrasandra, right behind the TV tower, a prominent landmark of Bangalore 25 years ago, at the far end of Nandidoorg Road.  Where and how does Dattaram Advertising feature in this story ? Read on.

Raman Rajan and I were college mates for the one year in the year 1968 at the S.I.E.S college in Sion, Bombay, doing out First Year Science as it was called then.  This course one chose after 11 years of studies leading upto the SSLC in a High School, if one wished to pursue the science and technology stream.  Present terminologies of 10 +2, 10+5, P.U etc., go over my head.

Raman Rajan followed in his father’s footsteps after finishing college and ran Dattaram Advertising as its owner/ M.D.  Dattaram handled the advertising for NP Chewing Gums in the year 1986.  I do now know if they still do : or indeed if NP Chewing Gums even exists today.

NP Chewing Gums earlier had appointed a professor from the Env. Engineering faculty of Bangalore University as their consultant to design their treatment plant.  As it turned out, a good number of M.Tech students of the Bangalore U., used this opportunity to churn out their Project reports under this professor.  A big show of “Scientific Method” of diligent study was made by installing a V-notch weir ( a device to measure instantaneous flows of water in an open channel ) in the terminal manhole of the sewer line leading out of the factory.  Now, any practicing environmental engineer would tell you that a manhole is just not the place to install a V-notch.  I  desist from going into the nitty gritty of the technicalities : suffice it is to say that it was an eyewash meant only to impress the uninitiated.

Finally, when the treatment plant design was presented, the Directors of NP Chewing Gums were aghast at the leviathan of a plant staring at them out of the report. The plant was designed for a flow quantity that was several times over that of even the total water intake into the factory.  The good Professor was insistent that his students had done a meticulous job of measuring the flow, and there simply could be no mistake.  “ A V- Notch does not lie “ pontificated the professor, and refused to alter his designs. 

There was another curious anecdote about this learned professor. The consultancy fee charged by the professor was, by all accounts a huge sum of money for the quantum of work put in and quality of report generated.  Later, when I was called in to assist NP Chewing Gum, the Director confided in me that the exorbitant fee charged by the professor was avowedly on account of his American degree, and the need to recover the costs of his foreign education !  The professor and his students were summarily sacked before they could wreak more havoc.

I was introduced to NP chewing Gums at this point by my buddy Raman Rajan of Dattaram fame, with an assurance to them that I had an American degree as well, but no need to panic.  My American degree was obtained by means of a fully paid scholarship.

During the course of my studies and investigations of the Water Balance in the factory, I quickly unraveled the mystery behind the absurdly large size of the plant designed by the Academics of Bangalore University.

The design figure taken by the good professor and his acolytes for the daily flowrate of wastewater tallied perfectly with the monthly quantity of water billed by the Municipal water supply agency ( BWSSB ) to NP Chewing Gums !  

Academic fraud and dishonesty rears its ugly head out of the campus !

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                   August 20, 2011

P.S.  My daughter and son then 6 and 4 years old, had a whale of a time when I played Willy Wonka and took them on a tour of the chewing gum and confectionery factory :  Came back home with several packets full of goodies.