(From top) Central Rice Research Institute and drain before entering the campus and after flowing out it. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, July 13: Trouble for Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) seems to arrive every year with the onset of monsoon. After incessant rain, sewage overflowing from the main surface water channel of the city poses serious threat to the vast stretches of crop research area.

Fields of the CRRI remain submerged for nearly a month every year after heavy rain. This toxic and contaminated water causes extensive damage to the crops.

“It has become an annual problem. The earthen drain which carries the sewage adversely affects experiments undertaken in crop area for research on rice,” CRRI’s director T.K. Adhya said.

The CRRI, one of the institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under the Division of Crop Sciences, was set up in 1946 at Bidyadharpur with an experimental farmland of 60 hectares provided by the state government.

Apart from conducting basic, applied and adaptive research on crop improvement and resource management for increasing and stabilising rice productivity in different rice ecosystems, with special emphasis on rain-fed ecosystems and the related abiotic stresses, the institute also engages in collection, evaluation, conservation and exchange of rice germplasm and distribution of improved plant materials to different national and regional research centres.

The tail end of the main drain passing through Bidyadharpur area meanders for nearly 1.8kms through the sprawling paddy fields of CRRI. The five to six-feet wide earthen drain is connected with the sluice gate on the main storm water channel at Gulguli.

“The untreated sewage water is allowed to take its own course through a bushy terrain from Gulguli. We seldom see any municipal activity here,” said Gagan Bhoi, a local resident.

Officials of the CRRI said the state government, district administration and Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) were informed about this on several occasions.

But no steps were taken either to divert the drain or raise its height with retaining walls.

Mayor Saumendra Ghosh said the CMC has no plans to address the problem separately. “Since the drain that passes through CRRI is part of a main storm water channel, it will be covered under the integrated sanitation project involving state-of-the-art separate drainage and sewerage systems in Cuttack city, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA),” Ghosh said.

“The Rs 754.44-crore project, expected to fix the problems of temporary inundations during periods of heavy rain, envisages construction of 230km of underground gravity sewers and pumping stations across the city with three sewage treatment plants to facilitate smooth drainage of storm water into the rivers during periods of heavy rainfall,” he added.

The CRRI director, however, said: “We have only received a communication on proposed work on the municipal drain. But no discussion with the civic officials has been followed on this as yet.”

Official sources said a proposal to reroute the drain outside the southern and eastern boundary walls of the CRRI to the sluice gate on the main stormwater channel at Gulguli is under consideration.

As part of the JICA project, nearly 30-km of the existing two main stormwater drains and connecting drains in the city will be rehabilitated or newly constructed under the project for improvement in the drainage facilities. In the process, 34 pumping channels and six dumping yards will be constructed.