Cuttack, Feb. 1: In a petition filed in Orissa High Court, a former minister has asked the judiciary to monitor execution of the Japanese International Co-operation Agency-funded Rs 754.44 crore integrated sanitation project for the city.

The PIL says a high court-approved committee should be constituted to monitor the implementation of the project.

For a city, plagued by poor drainage and sewer system, the project spells hope for the people of Cuttack. It is reckoned to fix the age-old problems of temporary inundations in the city during heavy rain. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone for the state-of-the-art project.

Mustafiz Ahmed, former minister and two times Cuttack City MLA, has argued in the PIL that the reduction of period to finish the job from five years to three years and then finally to 28 months “raises doubt that the project work will be completed without touching the problem of drainage”.

The petition will be taken up for hearing next week. “The division bench of acting Chief Justice P.K. Mohanty and Justice Raghuvir Dash, before which the PIL came up on Wednesday, posted it for hearing after a week along with a clarification from the government on how it plans to implement the project,” Ahmed’s counsel senior advocate Guru Prasad Mohanty told The Telegraph.

The project envisaging 230km of underground gravity sewers and pumping stations across the city includes sewage treatment plants at Bidanasi, Matagajpur and Banabidyadharpur to facilitate smooth drainage of storm water into the rivers during periods of heavy rainfall and reducing inundation problems in low lying areas.

To upgrade drainage facilities, 30km of the existing two main storm water and connecting drains in the city will be rehabilitated or newly constructed under the project.

The petitioner contended that “elaborate scrutiny of the process of reconstruction of the two main drains and connecting drains of various sizes is warranted as houses are attached to all drains with latrine pipe lines”.

One sewer plant built during the past 10 years is not functioning properly as the river beds on both sides are much above the ground level of the city, the PIL further argued raising questions about location of the treatment plants and their utility during floods.

Of the Rs 754.44 crore estimated cost, the Japanese agency is putting in Rs 624.65 crore in the project as loan assistance to be repaid by the state government in 40 years with a moratorium period of 10 years and interest rate of 0.75 per cent per annum. The rest will be borne by the state government.

The project is being implemented by the Odisha Water Supply and Sewerage Board under the housing and urban development department and managed by a Project Management Consultants (PMC) Consortium of Tokyo Engineering Consultants (Japan), Tetra Tech Inc of USA and Egis BCEOM International of France.

The PIL expressed apprehensions that unless “safe and proper execution of the project” is ensured by way of monitoring by the high court, the “borrowed money may be spent for the satisfaction of certain bureaucrats, engineers, contractors and consultants at the cost of the heavy burden of loan on the people of Odisha”.