Sewage planning goes down the drain

On the Waghodia Road, Somabhaini Chali, a slum settlement, encroaches upon storm water drain and the road.

No wonder, Vadodara is dotted with puddles and ponds all over, irrespective of whether it rains. And no wonder, as much as 40 per cent of the city does not have drainage or storm-water facilities. The reason: lack of vision and utter callousness.

If providing adequate water is a herculean task, equipping the city with a drainage network is a monumental work that is unlikely to complete by the turn of the century. Neither their is enough will nor money – the job needs at least Rs 500 crore.

Beginning on the wrong foot and continuing like that, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation, during the last 10 years, spoke only of water supply (which is still inadequate), and forgot its disposal.

One effect of this forgetfulness is water-logging. Come monsoon, and the VMC spends nearly Rs 50 lakh on quickfix solutions, especially patch works, after the accumulated water is drained out. At the same time, water contamination, due to sewage mixing up with drinking water through corroded lines, is another problem every area of the city suffers one time or the other.

Worse, the newly laid town planning schemes, especially in the periphery, forgot all about storm water drains. Even upmarket area like the R C Dutt Road lacks water disposal facility. The ISKCON Road between Gotri water tank and Raneshwar Mahadev Temple, a few km away from the R C Dutt Road, has the same problem.

In the absence of drainage facility, many parts of the city, particularly slums and houses on ULC land, release their sewage into storm water drains with impunity. The drains either get choked or begin corroding, for they are not designed to take the solid waste. Not only this, the discharge leaves a scope for an adverse effect on the sub-soil strata, a fact even executive engineer (drainage) K B Jaiswal does not rule out.

On paper, the VMC has worked out master plans for drainage and storm water drains, but a time-bound programme is not forthcoming. And so is the implementation. Highly placed official sources say if work starts now, it will take at least five years the VMC gives the city a complete network of storm water drains and drainages.

Municipal Commissioner G R Aloria, too, does not have any specific answer. “The proposal to prepare a master plan for storm water drains has been pending with the Standing Committee”, he says. And sources confirm the committee is yet to take up the proposal as it is still haggling for the price to prepare a feasibility report.

Only recently, based on an interim report submitted by Mumbai-based AIC Watson, the VMC agreed in principle to set up three new sewage treatment plants at a cost of over Rs 50 crore as the 30-year-old plants at Atladara, Gajrawadi and Tarsali need to be upgraded.

These three plants have been functioning at half the combined capacity to handle 80 million litres of domestic waste daily for the past several years. And what comes out is partially treated sewage which is discharged into storm water drains and open channels.