The town administration of Mayiladuthurai has called for tenders to construct and operate the underground drainage network in more areas and replace the existing backbone sewer in faulty areas under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme.
Under the National River Water Conservation Project, the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board laid the existing underground drainage network for 86.34 km with 15 lift stations and eight pumping stations to cover 31 of the 36 wards in the town.
The sewer network, operated and maintained by the Mayiladuthurai Municipality, was commissioned in 2008. A sewage treatment plant (STP) with a capacity of 5.85 mld was installed on 31.84 acres of land at Arupathy village on the outskirts of the town to treat the sewage before discharging it to the Sathiyavanan canal.
The existing network started facing problems as it experienced frequent bursts in the backbone sewer, leading to overflowing of sewage and traffic diversions. Municipal workers had to open the manholes to clear the blockages in the network.
To address this issue, the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply had decided to repair the existing backbone sewer in select areas and to increase the capacity of treatment plants keeping in view the future needs, besides extending the underground drainage network to cover more areas in five wards.
The State government recently accorded administrative clearance for the Detailed Project Report prepared by the town administration to execute the project. Accordingly, the Mayiladuthurai Municipality has called for tenders to the proposed project at a cost of ₹52.93 crore under the AMRUT 2.0 scheme.
The major components of the proposed project include replacing the existing backbone sewer for 6 km and installing a new sewage collection network for 36 km with over 6,000 house service connections. A new 9.05 mld capacity of STP near the existing one at Arupathy and 0.44 mld of STP at Sitharkadu, besides a pumping station and eight lifting stations, were part of the project. Work is likely to begin by early next year.
