An aerial view of Cuttack. Telegraph picture

Cuttack, June 21: The Rs 754.44-crore integrated sanitation project, involving state of the art separate drainage and sewerage systems in this city, is making tardy progress.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded-project targeted to fix the age-old problems of temporary inundations inside the city during periods of heavy rain. Though survey work for the project was completed nearly a year ago, not an inch of land has been acquired for it so far.

Cuttack’s municipal commissioner R.N. Nanda, however, claimed that the land acquisition process has already started. “A special weekly review method is being adopted to expedite the process. The first of the review meetings was held yesterday. JICA representatives also attended the meeting,” Nanda told The Telegraph.

Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) is the main stakeholder of the project that envisages construction of 230km of underground gravity sewers and pumping stations across the city. The project also plans to construct three sewage treatment plants to facilitate smooth drainage of stormwater into the rivers to reduce waterlogging in low-lying areas during periods of heavy rainfall.

Around 74 acres needs to be acquired for setting up 34 pumping channels and six dumping yards. While 67 acres of this are government lands, the rest are private properties.

“All the departments and parties concerned will be involved in a series of weekly review meetings to clear the bottlenecks for acquiring land for the project,” the commissioner assured.

Project details indicated that an additional 52 million litres of wastewater would be treated daily at the three proposed treatment plants at Bidanasi, Matagajpur and Banabidyadharpur. This will be in addition to 33 million litres of wastewater which was being treated now. The wastewater will also be safely discharged into Mahanadi and Kathajodi rivers without causing pollution for the people downstream of discharge points.

As part of the project, nearly 30km of the existing two main stormwater drains and connecting drains in the city will be rehabilitated or newly constructed for improvement of drainage facilities.

Mayor Saumendra Ghosh said the project was making progress as per schedule. “Pre-qualifying bids have already been invited for selecting parties to take part in the bidding for construction work. We hope the ground work for acquiring land would be completed before the bids are finalised,” Ghosh told The Telegraph.

The state urban development department has been entrusted with the responsibility to acquire the private lands. The project has been scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014. CMC officials said the JICA has committed to fund Rs 624.65 crores of the Rs 757.44 total project cost. This will be provided as a loan assistance which will be repaid by the state government in 40 years, with a moratorium period of 10 years, at an interest rate of 0.75 per cent per annum. The rest amount of the project cost will be borne by the state government.