The Public Health and Municipal Engineering Department (PHMED) has set in motion the much-awaited plan to prevent sewage from entering the Gollapadu channel as part of its efforts to clean up the century-old defunct watercourse in the town.
The 4.75-km Gollapadu channel, which criss-crosses the core areas of the town, continues to pose a major threat to public health due to its abysmal condition.
Once an assured source of irrigation, the channel has been virtually converted into a dumping yard owing to multiple factors, including utter neglect of its maintenance and large-scale encroachments along the watercourse over the past several decades.
The civic authorities had earlier devised a comprehensive plan to modernise the Gollapadu channel following persistent demands from the denizens to prevent health hazards and flooding of areas adjoining the watercourse, a recurring problem particularly during the rainy season.
The PHMED has been entrusted with the task of arresting the flow of sewage into the Gollapadu channel by exploring scientific methods to clean-up the watercourse, sources said.
The department has evolved a plan envisaging interception and diversion of sewage through construction of trunk main and other interventions, besides constructing a sewage treatment plant at an estimated outlay of ₹70 crore.
Improvement of connected storm water drains forms one of the major components of the action plan. The PHMED has floated tenders for execution of the ambitious project in a span of nine months.
