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Incomplete underground drainage work irks Selvapuram residents

September 19, 2012 01:20 pm | Updated 01:20 pm IST - COIMBATORE

Sewage from damaged line flows into pit dug for drainage

Sewage and water leaking from a damaged drinking water line stagnates in alarge pit that was dug for the Under Ground Drainage (UGD) scheme on VOC Main Road at Thillai Nagar in Coimbatore. Photo: K. Ananthan

For the past one-and-half months the residents of Thillai Nagar and neighbouring areas in Selvapuram have been asking the Coimbatore Corporation to close the pits dug for the underground drainage. As of Tuesday they continue asking.

The contractor executing the work on behalf of the Corporation dug the pit while executing the underground drainage work in the area. In the process, he damaged the nearby sewerage line. This led to sewage flooding the pit. Once the waste water filled up the pit, the contractor moved away the machines, says T.V. Gopi, a resident of the area.

It is not just sewage but also Siruvani water that is flowing into the pit. The water pipeline runs along that part of the street where the pit is. A day ahead of the water supply schedule, the Corporation sends a sewage tanker lorry to suck the waste water from the pit. It releases the water the next day and by the evening, the pit is full again because the pipeline leaks.

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This has been the situation for quite sometime.

For the past 45 days, because of the leak in the pipeline, the water that reaches their home is polluted and comes with a foul odour, complains G. Lakshmi, a resident. The Corporation supplies the very water to residents of Sarojini Nagar, Raj Nagar, Muthusamy Colony, Larus Garden and Thillai Nagar Main Road.

The residents took up the issue with the area representative, Ward 76 Councillor N. Chinnadurai but that hardly helped, rues Ms. Lakshmi’s neighbour P. Sankaramma.

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She says that the residents also asked the Councillor for more bins in the area but that demand too met the same fate.

The entire neighbourhood has only three bins, which is grossly insufficient. As a result, the garbage that the Corporation workers collect is dumped along street corners. Plastic covers and other light-weight materials fly into the drain, arresting the flow of sewage, says L.P. Santhosh Kumar, another resident.

There is more from the resident. He says that the contractor has also left uncovered the newly-constructed manholes in the area. Each measuring at least 10-foot-deep, there was every possibility of the residents or visitors getting injured because there is nothing to warn them of a manhole. There are three or four such uncovered, unprotected manholes, he adds.

V. Selvam, another resident, says that the haphazard road work complements the poor execution of the underground drainage work. Within days of laying a bitumen-topped road, the Corporation, using earthmovers, had scrapped off a portion of the road to facilitate construction of drain.

And the drain, if constructed, would let rain water into houses because of the difference in height. Residents of the area and Mr. Selvam say that they do not want such a drain.

Efforts to reach Mr. Chinnadurai went in vain.

Sources in the Corporation said that they would ask the contractor to immediately close the manholes, the pit and also expedite the pace of work. By weekend Thillai Nagar and neighbourhood would be better, they promise.

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