Pipes laid, Solan residents urged to connect to sewerage system

The Solan Municipal Corporation (MC) is encouraging residents to connect to the sewerage system in areas where pipes have been laid.

With the state high court stating in a recent order that providing sewerage connections is the statutory duty of civic bodies and they cannot withhold this service merely due to objections from private landowners.

With the order making it clear that the consent of the property owners is not required to lay sewerage pipes, a large number of residents are coming forward to avail connections in Solan city.

Pertinently, the lack of space to lay pipes on private land was a major hurdle which deterred residents from seeking connectivity.

Since those availing it were also supposed to pay 50 per cent of the water dues in addition to their water bill, residents were not keen to shoulder this additional monetary burden.

To encourage the residents, the civic body, as of now, is not levying any such charge as more connections will lead to scientific disposal of the waste from the plant. This step will also earn the city brownie points in the national-level ranking in the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan as the city has lagged behind in the national-level ranking.

“The civic body is receiving a large number of requests for providing no-objection certificates (NOCs) to get sewerage connectivity from executing agency Jal Shakti Department,” informed Usha Sharma, Mayor, Solan MC.

The town was divided into five zones as per a scheme commissioned in 2008. Zone B was the first to receive connectivity, but despite the lapse of 17 years, only 625 connections had been sanctioned and released as the residents were hesitant to get those.

As many as 1,500 connections were proposed for Zone B comprising The Officers’ Colony, Madhuban Colony, Rajgarh Road, Kotla Nullah, Tank Road, Lower Bazar and Hospital Road. The scheme was later supposed to be extended to the remaining zones which comprised about 30-40 per cent of the town populace but fund crunch halted its expansion.

Initially, Rs 26 crore was sanctioned for the scheme, but Rs 17 crore was spent on the land acquisition alone. An additional Rs 4.55 crore was sanctioned for the two zones but the delay and the high cost of land acquisition enhanced the cost to more than Rs 77 crore.

Given the cost escalation, officials were directed to seek revised approval of all zones about 8-9 years ago by the government, but it wasn’t granted. An effort was then made to seek funds from the centrally-sponsored Namami Gange programme on two occasions, but the agencies only agreed to provide Rs 10 crore for the sewage treatment plant and the network of pipes was supposed to be funded by the state government.