Bhubaneswar: East Coast Railway has come up with the idea of using micro tunnels to clear waterlogging from the station area here.

The system, which will be ready by the end of April, is expected to be a lesson for the agencies that have been finding it difficult to tackle waterlogging in Bhubaneswar.

As part of this system, small tunnels are used to install pipelines underneath roads and railroads to discharge rainwater.

A railway official said the station area used to get flooded during in the monsoon because the drain near the area was not big enough to discharge water during after a heavy shower.

Besides, a huge amount of rainwater from Ashok Nagar also accumulated in the area and added to the problems. The rainwater often flows on the railway tracks leading to signal failure and disruption of railway traffic. Sometimes the water also inundated the platforms.

"Initially, we had thought of constructing a culvert but that did not happen because it would have disrupted the movement of trains. Consequently, we decided go for micro-tunnelling as part of which a concrete pipe was pushed for 104 meters beneath the ground from one end of the platform to the other. The concrete pipe will be connected with the drain to discharge the rain water," said senior divisional engineer Ravi Prakash Yadav.

A railway officials said this was the first time the micro-tunnelling system had been used by Indian Railways.

"The work, which started in Febraury, will be completed at an estimated cost of Rs 1.7 crore. The entire work is expected to be completed by end of April," said another railway official.

Sources said that the system would be extremely helpful for the state capital, which experiences heavy water logging during the monsoon.

"As far as the cost factor is concerned, it would be less if used for city roads because the length of the concrete pipe in that case would be much less as compared to one passing all the railway platforms right from one to six," said a city based private contractor.