If you’re forced to cover your nose and look away when crossing a canal in New Town, this news would come as a breather. The authorities are about to conduct a study on Bagjola Canal, the most prominent one in the township, in a bid to determine how it has got this polluted. They eventually plan to clean up all the canals there. 

“We have requested the irrigation department to conduct a study on the sources of pollution in our canals and to suggest how their water quality can be improved,” said Debashis Sen the chairman cum managing director of Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (Hidco) and chairman of New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA). “The irrigation department has agreed and will soon conduct a pilot study in New Town’s Bagjola Canal.”

Sen, who is also the principal secretary of the state urban development department, would then share the findings with relevant civic bodies across the state so that they can all follow its advice and clean the canals in their jurisdiction. 

Silted and clogged
The canals in question are man-made water ducts meant for irrigation. Farmers may use its water for crops and launches may ply along their length. Rainwater drains into these canals too. 

But the water washes away silt as it flows and the same gets deposited in different places. To ensure smooth flow of water the canals need to be desilted (or dredged) from time to time, particularly before monsoon. 

Without dredging the flow of water gets sluggish and the stagnant water breeds mosquitoes and water hyacinths. These multiply quickly and degrade water quality by blocking photosynthesis by submerged plants for which sunlight is essential. This in turn greatly reduces oxygen levels in the water. This impacts fish and other underwater lives. The fish, that eat mosquito larvae, die as a result and so the mosquito menace worsens. 

New Town residents say their canals are yet to be dredged this year and the effluents that empty into the canal are also not treated. 

The irrigation department is primarily in charge of the canals’ upkeep and dredging.

The main canal in New Town is Bagjola Canal. It is 38km long and is a vital drainage canal of the city, flowing along areas like Barrackpore, Dum Dum, VIP Road, Chinar Park and New Town before emptying into the Kultiganga in the Sunderbans. Only 10km of the canal lies in New Town.

Stench and sting 
The New Town canals are in desperate need of a clean-up. Bagjola Canal, that crosses the under-construction Convention Centre near Hidco Bhaban, is smelly and the water appears black. Encroachers have set up huts and stalls by its bank and toss their waste into the water. Many open toilets are suspended over the canal too.

A Kestopur Canal tributary, that flows from under the box bridge towards Balaka Abasan and Aquatica, looks like a forest.
Water hyacinths have spread to such an extent here that the water is not even visible along most of its length. 

Its edges have hillocks of plastic and thermocol as well as encroached huts. 

“The stagnant water here is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and we have even seen dead goats floating in that water,” says Krishna Chowdhury, a resident of Balaka Abasan. 

A channel of the Bagjola Canal flows next to the NBCC Vibgyor complex and Amit Gupta, a resident, says they can barely speak in their compound in winter evenings as armies of mosquitoes fly into their mouths. “How are the authorities dreaming of becoming a smart city without solving such basic problems,” he asks.

Another resident, Shyama Prasad Das, says he has been urging officials at NKDA for three years to clean up the canal. “The authorities are quick to promise action but are yet to deliver,” he says.

“Besides the insect and mosquito menace, the canal is an open toilet for hawkers and toto (electric autorickshaw) drivers who sit outside our complex.”

Promises to keep 
Last year, Hidco joined hands with a private enterprise to set up a 1.5km-long nursery named Omnidel Village along one bank of Bagjola Canal. “We shall beautify the rest of the bank too. We shall put up aeration wheels in the water to create movement and push in oxygen. We would encourage boating too,” said Sen.

Sometimes water from the Hooghly is flown into the canals to keep them from stagnating but of late this hasn’t happened. “Till 2015, Hooghly water would be released into Kestopur Canal and Eastern Drainage Canal, that border Salt Lake, to curb the mosquito menace. But since then, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation has not requested us for the service,” said an official in the irrigation department. 

Another problem is encroachment. “The New Town canals are lined with encroachers and they use the canals as their dustbins. They dump everything from bottles and plastic bags to thermocol into them,” the official said.

Once the study’s report comes in the authorities would start cleaning up the canals. They also plan to clean the drains and procure high-powered pumps to flush out water from the roads and into the canals during monsoon.
 

Do you live next to any of these canals?
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