The Hindu 31.12.2013
‘State has dropped plan to let sewage into Bhima’
Minister for Municipal Administration and Waqf Qamarul Islam has said that the government has given up the idea of diverting the sewage into the Bhima at a point near the Saradagi barrage, from where the bulk water is lifted for providing drinking water. The sewage would be impounded and treated before letting it into the river.
Presiding over the quarterly review meeting of the Karnataka Development Programme (KDP) here on Monday, Mr. Islam said that a team of experts from Bangalore, deputed by the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Drainage Board, had visited the spot where the sewage mixed with the Bhima. The team members had said that the proposal mooted by the board to divert the water through a closed canal and allowing it to merge with the river in the downstream of Saradagi barrage at a cost of Rs. 14 crore, would not serve any purpose.
The threat to the health of people drinking the water drawn from the Bhima would continue to remain. The only solution was to treat the sewage before letting it into the river. The State government had accepted the report of experts and directed the KUWSDB to upgrade the existing oxidation plant, located near the Bhima, into a sewage treatment plant, and allow only treated sewage to flow into the Bhima, as a permanent solution. Mr. Islam said that the government had also given its green signal to take up the work on underground drainage (UGD) system in Aland and Wadi in Chittapur taluk and drinking water project to Sedam. The district administration had been directed to issue 4(1) notification for the acquisition of land required for implementing these projects.
Aland MLA B.R. Patil, who spoke on the issue, said that owing to non-availability of suitable land, the UGD work sanctioned to Aland town could not be taken up in time. Many projects sanctioned to taluk headquarters could not be taken up for want of land. The government should create a land bank with about 25 to 100 acres in and around all taluk headquarters for taking up the projects, including the newly sanctioned schools, hospitals and other infrastructure facilities, he said.
