Work in progress to renovate the 1.28km stretch of the natural drainage channel No. 8 near Baramunda. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, April 28: The Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) has taken the initiative of reviving chocked natural drainage channel No. 8 in the city. The OUAT engineering wing, directorate of physical plants (DPP), has already begun work to de-clog part of the 4.33km channel at an estimated cost of over Rs 4 crore.

This augurs well for the state government as it has been making plans to revive most of the clogged natural drainage channel in the city.

Work has started from the origin of the channel at Jokalandi road culvert near Jagannath Prasad behind Baramunda colony. In Phase-I of the plan, OUAT will take up renovation work on the channel up 1.28km.

The university will take up the work from Jokalandi up to the National Highway (NH)-5 flyover near Baramunda bus terminal. As the channel passes through the farmhouse of the university up to the boundary wall of the Bhubaneswar airport, the decision on cleaning up the rest of the channel would be taken up later.

Prashant Kumar Pradhan, director of DPP, said: “The renovation will ensure that the university land is used for better purposes such as scientific research, crop development and seeds production. It will also add to building a better city as part of the civic responsibility.” The natural drainage channel is a geologically formed terrain trough in which the rainwater should flow. But gradually it became a sewerage channel contaminating the neighbouring areas, farmlands and adding to the soil acidity.

“The renovation work up to the airport boundary is in our plan, but in the Phase-I we are doing it on the 1.28 km stretch with the financial support from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research,” said Pradhan.

The Telegraph had carried a report for a proper renovation of all the 10 natural drainage channels. Earlier, there was a plan to renovate only four channels by the drainage division, Cuttack, with funds available through the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. However, subsequently the state government has decided to include all the channels in the renovation plan with its own funds.

Earlier, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority had given a proposal to the state government to take up the renovation plan of the natural drainage channel No. 9, but till date nothing has started. On the other hand, the drainage division, Cuttack, has finished the tendering process for the four natural drainage channels — 1, 2, 3 and 4, but the work is yet to be started. A senior scientist of OUAT said apart from making a clean-up act, the step to renovate the natural drainage channel passing through the farm land of the varsity would also save soil erosion and degradation of valuable government land. Earlier, most of them remained submerged due to the polluted and acidic water flowing through the water channel.

The natural drainage channel No. 8 after starting from the culvert near Jagannath Prasad meets channel No. 9 near Pokhariput covering areas such as Baramunda, Jagamara, Gandamunda and Pokhariput. While it faces problems such as dumping of solid wastes and animal body parts into its bed, weeds jam the entire stretch from OUAT farmhouse to Gandamunda.

Illegal construction of houses and boundary walls near the Bhaktamadhunagar housing colony in Pokhariput area under ward No. 30 of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation is also threatening its flow in the down stream.