The Hindu : New sewerage section to go on line this year

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 19, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

New sewerage section to go on line this year

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM June 18. With work on the laying of sewage lines in the Pattom- Goureesapattom-Pazhayaroad nearing completion, the D-Block of the city sewage network covering areas such as Plamoodu, Kesavadasapuram, Ulloor and Kannamoola is all set to go on line.

In reply to a question in the Assembly on Tuesday, the Irrigation Minister, T. M. Jacob, said the Block would be commissioned this year itself.

The D-Block had been partially commissioned in 1994, with a main pump house at Kannamoola. This was designated as zone two. Now, the zone one is awaiting commissioning. This zone is serviced by two `lifting stations'- one at Murinjapalam and one at Plamoodu which will `lift' the sewage in this zone to a main `lifting station line' that passes in front of the GG Hospital.

The city has been divided into seven sewage blocks of which underground sewage facilities currently exist only in five block. Of this the E block covering one portion of the Peroorkada area carries the least sewage load. At present only about 40 per cent of the roughly 75 sq km capital city is serviced by an underground sewage system. This system initially conceived of during 1938 now services about 60 per cent of the households in the city.

However, the design life of that `Comprehensive Sewage System' was only 30 years. This means that the `life' of the present sewage system was over by 1968. This coupled with a population explosion in the city has put tremendous strain on the sewage system, which is now carrying about 300 to 400 per cent of its design load.

It is estimated that about 80 to 85 per cent of the drinking water piped to the city is returned to the sewage system either as sullage or sewage. The present sewage system was designed when the total amount of drinking water consumed by Thiruvananthapuram was a small fraction of the 214 million litres a day (mld) needed by the city today.

The Irrigation Minister also announced in the Assembly that the city's drainage network would be extended to the panchayat areas, which were recently incorporated into the city corporation limits.

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