Under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, every industry is required to provide adequate treatment of the effluents generated by it before their disposal, irrespective of whether the disposal is in a stream, on land, into sewerage system or into sea. However, often the small-scale industries (SSIs), due to their limited size and scale of operations do not find it economically viable to install elaborate pollution control equipment. The Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) are considered a viable treatment solution for collective treatment of effluents, particularly from small and medium scale industries.
CETPs are seen as a solution to overcome the constraints associated with effluent treatment in the individual industries. CETPs could potentially help in achieving treatment of combined wastewater from various industries at lower unit costs and also help facilitate better compliance and monitoring with standards.