Work on boosting sludge carrier’s capacity to resume soon: MC

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 29

The work regarding 12.5-km pipeline, parallel to the sludge carrier, to increase its capacity is set to restart soon in the coming days as the administration has sorted out all issues that were blocking the project earlier.

Senior Engineer with the Municipal Corporation Sandeep Gupta said: “All issues pertaining to the work front and villagers have been sorted out and the private firm Triveni has started making preparations to resume the in the coming days.”

The sludge carrier was constructed in 1991. It carries water treated at the sewage treatment plant (STP) and empties it into fields. Due to its low capacity, many breaches were reported in the past and residents have to face a lot of problems. In 2013, the MC decided to lay a 12-km-long parallel pipe with a diameter of 48 inches, at a cost of Rs17.20 crore, to enhance the capacity of the sludge carrier.

The project started in 2015, but was stopped after laying a 4.8-km pipeline due to opposition by farmers, who had moved the court. On September 20, the district administration, the MC and officials of the Sewerage Board reached the Gehri Baghi village to restart the work, but could not succeed due to opposition from farmers.

It was learnt that farmers told the SDM that the work could not be started as the matter was sub-judice. The SDM, in response, showed the farmers the land revenue records, according to which the land belonged to the government. Officials of the district administration said the pipeline would be laid on government land and no farmer’s land would be used for the purpose.