Coimbatore Corporation will soon take up work to clean River Noyyal. As a first step towards taking up the work, the civic body has floated tender to appoint a consultant, who will prepare a detailed project report of the work to be taken in the eight-km stretch of the river that is in the city limits.
Corporation officials say that they have floated the tender in the last week of August and expect to finalise a consultant in the next few days. The consultant’s task will be to prepare the report for the civic body to clean and maintain the river.
Report
The consultant will have two months and ₹5 lakh to submit the report. The report will have the details of the work the civic body should take up and the cost required for execution. Only after that the corporation will float tender for the work.
The officials say that the civic body will take up work with funds from the Central Government’s Smart Cities Mission project.
Officials in the Public Works Department’s Water Resource Organisation, which is tasked with maintaining water bodies including the river, say that the organisation will give its inputs once the corporation finalises the consultant and the latter holds a joint meeting.
But, what are required for the river’s upkeep are three things – removing encroachments, stopping inflow of sewage and preventing dumping of solid waste.
Of the eight-km stretch of the river, nearly four-five km are under encroachments and in some cases on both the banks. The corporation’s first task should be to remove those. The second should be to stop inflow of sewage, which starts right at the place the river enters the city’s boundary near Perur.
It is imperative that the corporation plugs the sewage inflow not only into the river but also the channels that are part of the Noyyal system, as not doing it will amount to undoing the work of cleaning the river.
The third is to identify vulnerable points where solid waste and debris are dumped along the river and fence those portions.
Officials say that the civic body is aware of the problems and that the detailed project report will look into all those issues.
