A main stormwater channel in Cuttack, and (below) dirty waste remain on road after drain desiltation works. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, April 15: Waterlogging is likely to remain a major problem for the residents of the Millennium City in the coming monsoon as major portions of the city’s drains have not as yet been desilted.

Though the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has started its annual desiltation operation, it is still stuck with minor surface water channels. Moreover, more than 60 per cent of the 660-km length of the city’s surface drains has not as yet been covered under the programme.

The civic administration, however, claims to desilt the entire drainage system, thereby making it ready for the monsoon, by the end of May.

The CMC takes up annual desiltation operation to make the city ready for monsoon by end of May to prevent waterlogging conditions and inundation of homes by overflowing drains.

“Silt removal is necessary every year because the drainage system across the city does not have the required gradient of 0-1ft in every 50ft, resulting in a faster process of siltation than clearance by normal flow of water through the drainage system,” said a senior CMC official.

The corporation spends nearly Rs 1.5 crore for desiltation every year. This major civic exercise covers the entire drainage system comprising two main stormwater channels stretching up to 25km, a network of 29km of branch drains and 72km of tertiary drains with surface water channels measuring up to 660km.

“We have already invited bids for desilting of the main and branch stormwater channels. The tender process will be finalised by the end of next week and execution of the work contracts will start in first week of May,” CMC executive engineer Ashok Parida told The Telegraph today.

“The process of excavation of silt load from the main and branch stormwater channels has been targeted to be completed by end of May or first week of June,” he said.

Desilting work on the surface water channels was started over a fortnight ago. “We had started clearing silt from the small surface drains, including the tertiary ones, in the last week of March. So far, desiltation works at 34 of the 54 wards have been completed,” CMC health officer N.C. Raj told The Telegraph.

“We hope to cover the rest 20 wards by the end of this month,” Raj said.

However, question marks are being raised over the desiltation operation as dirty silt is being placed on roads after extraction from the small drains. The silts are also not being moved off the streets on the same day. This is causing lot of problems for the local residents and other commuters.

“The problem is aggravated on the narrow roads. There is already lack of space on roads for the commuters to move. But now, due to placing of the dirty silt, it has become more problematic for people to move on the road,” said Saumendra Mishra, a resident of Biju Patnaik Chawk.

“The bad odour makes it very difficult for the commuters to walk on the road,” said Alaka Patnaik, a resident of Srivihar area in Tulasipur.