Topography, faulty sewer lines to blame

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 19

The saucer-shaped topography of the city, an age-old drainage network, no storm water and rain harvesting projects have once again brought back the horrors of heavy waterlogging on the streets in the city after a record 231 mm rainfall lashed the city in two days.

The city streets continue to be under water. Residents are greatly affected as rainwater enters their houses and damage their household items. Bathinda Tribune probes the reasons behind the problem of waterlogging.

Age-old drainage

The drainage network in the city is based on small and big drains developed long ago. As a result, they do not have the required capacity to hold and drain out the excess rainwater. The network in Bathinda is sewage-cum-drainage meant for discharge of waste water generated regularly in the city and not one meant for discharge of excess rainwater only. Even though some areas, which are more prone to waterlogging, have been provided stormwater channels and pumps, rainwater takes quite a long time for drainage because the water flows into sewer pipes.

Saucer-shaped topography

Bathinda city is situated on sand dunes, due to which it has saucer-shaped topography and it poses difficulty in flushing out water from low-lying areas in the city.

“The accumulation of rainwater in case of downpour is inevitable as it is a saucer-shaped city. In the past two decades, the development of the city has been done in an unregulated manner,” said MCB senior deputy mayor Tarsem Goyal.

Sewer in limbo

As Bathinda does not have a separate stormwater drainage network and the existing sewerage-cum-drainage network is also insufficient. Besides, it is laid against the natural flow. Sewer and rain water are disposed into a sludge carrier, which took it to the lasara drain, but the problem is that sludge carrier is very weak and turns fragile due to lack of its maintenance. During the rains, water gets accumulated in excess in the carrier which gets breached. Moreover, most manholes and road gullies have not been cleaned in the city, which lead to the blocking of sewerage. Though there was a number of complaints of overflow of sewerage in the city, no timely action was initiated by officials, aggravating the problem.

Encroachments on ponds

Encroachments on ponds continue to shrink their area as the civic authorities have turned a blind eye toward the violation. There are four ponds in the city which are situated at Sanjay Nagar, near DAV College, Sanguana Basti and Amarpura Basti. It is said that land mafia has grabbed pond land by dumping debris in the corners.

These ponds are meant to hold water, sewage and rainwater. However, since these have been encroached upon, water finds its way on to streets and roads.

Triveni company

The MCB had hired a Noida-based private firm, Triveni company, and started a 100 per cent sewerage and water supply project in the city in 2014 at a cost of Rs 288 crore, but till date it has failed to complete its project. Even the 10 years O&M work of sewerage and water supply was also given to it, despite the fact that it had failed to do anything. A major flaw in this contract was that Triveni company did not have the expertise in carrying out sewerage and water supply works as it has expertise in the construction of Sewerage Treatment Plants (STP).

Lack of co-ordination

The MCB, Sewerage Board and Triveni company are the three agencies which manage the sewerage and water supply in the city, but during complaints, they keep blaming each other as there is no co-ordination among themselves.

It is pertinent to mention that areas that are more prone to waterlogging are Power House Road, Sirki Bazaar, Civil Lines, Paras Ram Nagar, Aggarwal Colony, Harpal Nagar, Veer colony, Amrik Singh Road, etc.

(To be continued)