Old pipes bursting at the seams FILTH FLOW: Cantonment,Chickpet Worst Hit | Drains Groan Under Population Boom | Garbage,Debris Block Flow In Commercial Areas TNN If our underground sewerage pipes were a little wider,maybe parts of old Bangalore wouldnt sink under an hour of hard rain.When Saturday nights downpour inched up to a record 108mm in just three hours,the network buckled. Little wonder,for the old pipes are just 300mm in diameter,and have reached bursting point.The citys old localities Chickpet,Shivajinagar,KR Market and Malleswaram were inundated,with underpasses and basements bearing the brunt. The citys drainage spans a length of over 6,000 km and most of it is at least half a century old.In fact,2,000 km of pipes date back to pre-Independence and are just 1ft wide.The new pipelines the city is getting are up to 2.6 metre in diameter,depending on the needs of the area. The spike in population from 53.79 lakh to 96.21 lakh in the first decade of the second millennium has exposed Bangaloreans to the inadequacies of the poor drainage network.In congested places like Chickpet,Church Street and Shivajinagar,where overflowing drainage pipes are the norm,a short spell of rain leads to flooding. The BWSSB,though,seems to have run out of funds to replace the old pipelines with new ones in pockets like these.The board needs Rs 6,000 crore to replace the citys drainage network.Laying 1m of drainage pipeline costs anywhere between Rs 3,000 and Rs 4,000. There are other reasons too: garbage dumped by hotels and commercial establishments into their sewage drains block up the network.And the BWSSBs shortage of jetting machines to clear the blockages is not helping matters - 119 machines cater to the citys 198 wards. SOLUTIONS FROM THE TOP Chief minister Siddaramaiah recently suggested that all old pipelines be realigned and one more jetting machine be provided for every two wards. City in-charge minister R Ramalinga Reddy told TOI the pipelines had been laid 20 to 30 years ago and admitted that 90% of sewage water is let into lakes.There are plans to install sewage treatment plants in lakes as a support plan to avoid waterlogging during rain.Blaming hoteliers,he said sewage water overflows during the monsoon in areas like Church Street and Chickpet because waste is dumped into drains. BWSSB engineer-in-chief T Venkataraju says,The board is renovating around 100 km of pipelines every year on need basis.This is a part of the Environment Action Plan taken up under three phases,funded by JnNURM,the World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency.The pipelines will be renovated while developing roads which come under Tender SURE. ENVIRONMENT ACTION PLAN EAP-A : Replacement and rehabilitation of 33km of sewer length | Cost: Rs 47 crore Status: Completed EAP-C :Adding sewerage network of 109 km | Cost: Rs 360 crore Status: DPR ready,work tendered EAP-B : Replacement and rehabilitation of 80km of sewer length,taken up under 8 packages | Cost: Rs 176 crore Status: Ongoing,to be completed by 2013 In the suburbs: Underground drains of 200km to 110 villages added to BWSSB network Cost: Rs 2,400 crore Status: Project ready by 2014
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 04:53:37 +0000
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