Mayor Subrata Mukherjee will implement an ambitious plan to lay underground sewerlines in areas of the city proper where surface drains still exist.
“It will be a joint programme of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) and a survey is now underway for the work,” said Mukherjee.
There is already a network of about 1,400 km of underground brick sewers and pipe sewers in most of the 84 wards (wards 6 to 90) of the Calcutta proper area.
But at least 25 km of open drains in six wards in the eastern end of Calcutta proper have not been converted into underground sewerlines over the past 50 years. That accounts for about 75 per cent of the total drainage network in these six wards.
Surface drains still exist in the backward municipal areas, as well as in the eastern part of areas like Ballygunge Place, Gariahat, Park Circus and Sealdah, covering six wards (56, 57, 58, 59, 66 and 67).
“An underground sewer service is overdue to the people living in these localities, as they have been shelling out civic taxes at a much higher rate than residents of the added areas,” mayor Mukherjee said.
His persuasion led the ADB to include drainage and environment improvement of these six wards in its Rs 1245-crore loan package to the CMC.
The ADB’s Calcutta Environment Improvement Project was originally meant for six wards on the northern fringe of the city, from South Sinthee to Chiria More, and 41 wards in the added areas of Behala, Garden Reach and Jadavpur.
Besides the surface drains, five trunk drains (open nikashi channels) flow down these areas, causing further deterioration in the overall environment of their adjacent localities.
According to CMC’s special officer (transportation infrastructure development) Swapan Dattagupta, among the five nikashis, no. 11, running along Hughes Road, is the longest (three km) and no. 7 is the smallest (700 m), flowing between Topsia pumping station and the Park Circus connector to the EM Bypass.
These five nikashi drains and roadside surface drains, not less than two feet wide, will be converted into underground drains with financial assistance from the ADB, and surface drains with a width less than two feet will be converted into underground sewers by the CMC.
