Dumped garbage and (right) lack of proper drainage system in Gopalpur. Telegraph pictures

Cuttack, March 9: Urban status is sitting heavy on Gopalpur. Though the locality lost its panchayat tag in 1997 to emerge as an urban area, residents of Gopalpur are yet to reap the benefits of development. Basic civic amenities remain a distant dream and a depleting water table is spreading waterborne diseases in the locality.

Lack of adequate pucca roads, better drinking water facilities and drainage systems have now started to affect the daily lives of people who live in Gopalpur, which falls in Ward No. 52 of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC).

“There are no proper roads in the locality in spite of the fact that this is one of the developing areas that fall between the twin cities. Many existing roads are also in bad shape because they aren’t repaired regularly,” said Nimaicharan Lenka (71), a retired government employee.

Several commercial and residential apartments mushroomed in the area in an unplanned way.

As a result, the roads had become narrow and there was no space to build channels to drain out wastewater, Lenka said.

Gopalpur is located near NH-5, which connects the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Gopalpur became an urban area in 1997. Prior to that, it was a panchayat area along with Subhadrapaur.

Local residents said that the lack of stringent laws had led to many agricultural lands being converted into homestead lands in Gopalpur. Its proximity to Cuttack makes the area the most suitable place for commercial and residential colonies.

Though Gopalpur is bordered by two rivers — Kathjodi and Kuakhai — drinking water supply is one of the major problems here.

“Piped water supply has been extended to many areas, but there is a major chunk of the population that depends on tube wells and the groundwater table to meet their water requirements,” said one resident of the area.

“The depleting water table is leading to the outbreak of jaundice and other waterborne diseases in the area. The iron content in tube well water and local water bodies is dangerously high. Moreover, there is no planned drainage system here, which is a major problem for residents of the area,” said Laxminarayan Sahoo (39), another local resident

Councillor Pradip Behera admitted that the residents were facing problems because of the lack of adequate civic amenities in the area. “We don’t have adequate funds, and so there has been problems in carrying out various development projects in the area. Despite the dearth of funds, however, we are trying to solve key problems of the residents in a planned way,” said Behera

The councillor added that building and repairing roads, which was not done at all from 1997 to 2003, had begun and been completed in some pockets. Work would be taken up in the remaining areas as well, he promised.