Workers at the Ashiana-Digha project site on Thursday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

The delayed project to cover the Ashiana-Digha drain will take another four months to complete.

The project has already missed three deadlines in the past three years. It remained stalled for the past four months with the civic body claiming that it was not possible to cover up the 1.8km drain, along Ashiana-Digha road, during monsoon.

Work has, however, restarted. The project — for which Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Ltd (BRPNNL) is the executing agency — is expected to be completed by the end of this financial year.

A BRPNNL official said: “Acting on the directive of Patna Municipal Corporation, we had stopped work on covering up the drain in the first week of June. We resumed work from mid-October. Around 150m remains to be covered. We expect it will take another three-four months.”

He added that the work should be complete by March 31, 2014.

Once completed, the stretch of the road from Ashiana Mor to Rajiv Nagar would be 14m wide. At present, it is a two-way road, with half the width.

The work of covering the drain was supposed to be completed by January 2011. The deadline was extended twice — first to March 31, 2012 and then to June 30 this year.

The construction work has turned the stretch along the canal into a commuters’ nightmare with potholes dotting the road and construction material encroaching on it.

A resident of Ram Nagari sector 2, Ravi Srivastav, said: “There is either too much dust or too much mud across the entire stretch of the road. Small accidents are common.”

He blamed the authorities for not providing an alternative to commuters and questioned why the small project should take more than three years.

Sources in the BRPNNL claimed that the main reason for delay was encroachment on the drain by houses abutting it. The agency had to convince the landowners to break down the walls before covering the drain.