Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) will soon lay water and sewage pipelines at Bholakpur slum in Musheerabad constituency, notorious for its water contamination issues.
GHMC Commissioner and Managing Director of the water board M. Dana Kishore informed this during a press conference on Tuesday, and said tenders would soon be called for the works costing close to ₹ 20 crore. Water pipelines are estimated to cost ₹15.1 crore and sewage lines about ₹4.5 crore , to provide contamination-free water supply to the 3.5 square kilometre area, Mr. Dana Kishore said. Bholakpur was known for contamination between water and sewage lines, resulting in deaths on multiple occasions.
The press conference was organised in view of the city being conferred ODF++ (Open Defecation Free Plus Plus) status by the Swachh Bharat Mission in the run up to the Swachh Survekshan rankings. Mr. Dana Kishore informed that three organisations representing Swachh Bharat Mission conducted an independent survey in the city and visited a total of 63 toilets, and 10 sewage treatment plants before making their recommendations.
With this, Hyderabad has become the only Metro city with ODF++ status, and shared the status with only two other cities, Indore and Chandigarh, he said.
Admitting that open urination is still existing in the city, Mr.Dana Kishore said a public awareness campaign will be taken up against it from February first week. A total of 617 persons have been fined ₹61,700 for open urination so far, he said.
Faecal sludge treatment plants have been set up at all the 18 STPs in the city, and total of 150 septic tank cleaners have been issued licenses and identity cards. As a long term measure, 3,000 kilometres of sewage lines are to be laid in the peripheral municipalities which have been merged with GHMC, for which a DPR was prepared way back in 2009. Now, the report is being updated, and a survey is under way for estimating the requirement of additional STPs too. The project could cost about ₹6,000 crore in total, for which central government and multilateral agencies will be approached soon, he said.
