Cuttack, June 7: Messy just got messier. People in various parts of the city are bearing the brunt of spillage of silt Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC)’s massive silt cleanup operation in the major surface water channels.

Though the silt was being excavated from the main storm water channel, the sludge was being dumped on the roadside instead of being removed.

“Left unattended for days, the slush has been spilling onto the streets, creating unhygienic conditions and causing hardship for people,” said Mir Zafar Ali of Kesarpur.

The annual silt removal operation is taken up to prevent waterlogging and inundation of homes by overflowing drains following heavy rain. The exercise was started a fortnight ago.

“The problem has aggravated as the roads are already congested. Now, due to the silt, it is becoming difficult for us even to move on a two-wheeler,” said Saumendra Mishra, a commuter at Rausapatna.

“The odour makes is hard to bear,” said Alaka Patnaik, a commuter at Meria Bazaar.

Corporation officials said that the slush had not been removed from roads for over four days due to inadvertent delay in removal of silt excavated from the major storm water channel 1.

“Steps are being taken to speed up the process of carting away the silt loads dumped on the roads after excavation from the main drains. We expect to streamline the process within the next 24 hours,” the civic body’s executive engineer Lalit Mohan Das told The Telegraph.

The CMC’s annual silt removal operation in surface water channels to make the city rain ready is already behind schedule. Usually, the cleaning starts in first week of April and is officially completed by first week of May. As of now, less than 50 per cent work has been completed.

“Silt removal from the drains was delayed, but the work has been undertaken on a war footing. It will be complete by June 10,” Das said. The lack of the required one foot of silt in the main surface water channels results in a faster process of siltation than clearance by normal flow of water through the drainage system. Besides, indiscriminate disposal of solid wastes adds to the silt load.

The silt removal exercise covers the entire drainage system consisting of two main storm water 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.