Bhubaneswar, Jan. 23: People living in localities through which natural drainage channel No. 2 passes cannot stop complaining. The channel is choked with waste and silt. The water is polluted and can no longer be used for household purposes. The 550-metre stretch that passes through Gadakana mouza is the worst hit.

The natural drainage channel originates near the office building of a major coal company and travels through the campus of Sainik School, Railway Colony and meets natural drainage channel No. 3 near the railway bridge in Mancheswar. Midway through this course, it also passes through parts of Vir Surendra Sai Nagar.

The channel gathers a great deal of waste near Sainik School, as it passes close to a temporary garbage collection centre. Sources said garbage has been accumulating here, as officials have been lax about dumping it at the designated dumping ground near Bhuasuni.

Local residents say the transit dumping ground has created a mess in the area. Flies abound in the area and plastic waste is not segregated.

“We have complained to the civic authorities and hope that measures will be taken,” said Sarat Kumar Sahu, a local resident and contractor.

Another resident Bairagi Dehuri, a graduate student, said: “The water of the channel was being used by people for bathing. But as the people upstream are letting their sewer water run into it, it can no longer be used for this purpose. The channel is also full of weeds.”

The areas near the natural water channel are being encroached upon as well. There are houses on encroached land on both sides of it at several places. Officials of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the area between Railway Colony and the channel was also encroached upon at places. Pollution is an acute problem at these places.

“After receiving complaints from residents, the BMC has decided to barricade the temporary garbage dumping site so that the plastic waste does not go out of the area. The road passing through the garbage dumping site would also be closed to the general public,’’ said deputy municipal commissioner Priyadarshi Mohapatra.

The authorities have decided to make the natural drainage channel No. 2 free of all kinds of encroachment, a senior BMC official said.

He added: “The drain will be renovated under the state government’s renovation plan.”

Executive engineer, drainage division (Cuttack), Pradip Kumar Duria, under whose jurisdiction the water channel falls, said: “Natural drainage channel No. 2 will be included in the first phase of the renovation plan during which four such channels have been listed for renovation. Under the plan the channel’s bed will be laid with laterite stones and walls concretised.”