The Taladanda canal that flows through Cuttack. Telegraph picture

Cuttack, June 8: Work on the civic project involving interception and diversion of drains for preventing water pollution in the Taladanda canal has been delayed because of sporadic clearance of encroachments by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation.

The canal, which meanders through the city for nearly 4km, starts at Jobra and links the Mahanadi river with the Bay of Bengal at Paradip, 83km away.

At Jobra and Chauliaganj, there were at least 17 outfalls through which untreated water and sewage from drains were finding their way into the canal. The effluence had been checked in five outfalls by 2008. But, the rest 12 outfalls are yet to be diverted to the city’s main storm water channel.

Official sources said the corporation had drawn up a project to prevent water pollution in the canal in 2009. The Odisha Water Supply and Sewerage Board was asked to execute the project on behalf of the corporation. The civic body was to make available land along the banks of the canal available to the board to start work on the Rs 441.27-lakh project.

The project envisaged interception and diversion works involving commissioning of sewage pumping station with wet well and masonry drains at Jobra and Chauliaganj for preventing the water pollution in the canal.

However, the work is far from being completed. Board officials said presence of encroachments in certain stretches of the project area at Jobra and Chauliaganj had affected the work.

“Encroachments in the form of permanent structures adversely obstructed the work. More so, the corporation has been proceeding in a sporadic manner instead of ensuring the total project area encroachment free by taking effective and timely steps,” a board official said.

Mayor Saumendra Ghosh, however, said: “Steps are being taken to make the total project area encroachment free to facilitate completion of the project.”

“In fact, work at seven outfall points was facilitated nearly a month ago by demolition of structures — encroachments on government lands at Chauliaganj,” Ghosh told The Telegraph.

The corporation officials said portions of a two-storey building, boundary wall to two temples, a platform, two houses, a local club and a toilet, which had come up on irrigation department land, were demolished as part of the eviction drive undertaken at Chauliaganj in the last week of April.

“It’s good that work can now be taken up to check flow of sewage from drains in our area into the Taladanda to prevent water pollution,” said Ramesh Sahu, a local resident.

Another board official said work at Jobra was almost over. But, the presence of encroachments on the drainage line at Chauliaganj had posed obstruction till nearly a month ago, delaying the work.

In an affidavit, filed in Orissa High Court, project engineer of the board Pramod Kumar Sahoo stated: “The land survey for alignment of the proposed drain was not pragmatic or practical.”

“The corporation, the water resources department and the revenue department should have realised that it is not an easy process to evict the unauthorised occupants or encroachers where structures are located on the proposed drainage line and the time which may be consumed to remove such encroachments,” Sahoo stated. The high court is monitoring implementation of the project while adjudicating on a PIL on pollution of the Taladanda by unchecked flow of sewage from city drains. A socio-cultural organisation, Maitree Sansad, filed the PIL in March 2009.