Cuttack: The much-awaited replacement of the old drinking water pipelines in the city will be completed in June.

The public health engineering organisation (Pheo) is implementing the Rs 34-crore project under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut).

Pheo (Cuttack division) executive engineer Sushant Ghadei on Sunday said that nearly 98km of pipelines, which were old and had already outlived their service period, were to be replaced. "So far, we have replaced around 96km of the old pipelines. The remaining work is expected to be over by June," Ghadei said.

The water distribution pipelines in the old parts of Cuttack had been installed two to three decades ago. These old pipelines needed immediate replacement with people in these areas suffering from water-borne diseases frequently because of contamination.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone for the pipe replacement project on January 31, 2016. It had been targeted to be completed by the end of September 2017.

A Pheo official said time was lost in tackling the problem of high groundwater level and underground pipelines through which houses release wastewater into drains.

In some parts of the city, the officials said the water level was just 2ft below the surface. Consequently, the replacement of the old pipelines becomes difficult with them being submerged under water. "The replacement of the submerged old pipelines in such areas took more time, because we had to take steps to realign the new ones to avoid submergence," Ghadei said.

The officials also faced problems in narrow lanes and by-lanes, where houses release wastewater through pipelines connected to drains running below the road.

"Residents of these areas opposed the digging up of roads as it inconvenienced them. It took up a lot of our time to convince them to go ahead with the replacement work," Ghadei said.

He said the laying of sewer lines under the Japan International Co-operation Agency-funded integrated sanitation project in some of the targeted areas also posed hindrance.

"We hope that the ongoing project to fix all leaking and corroding pipelines in the city will bring about a permanent solution to the periodic outbreaks of water-borne diseases to some extent," said Telenga Bazar resident Pradeep Sahoo.