Urban News

Source : The Hindu Date : 05.06.2009

Drainage project may take one more year

K.Manikandan

— Photo: K.Manikandan

The site earmarked in Keelkattalai for the main pumping station of the underground drainage project of Pallavaram Municipality.

TAMBARAM: The massive, ambitious underground drainage project of Pallavaram Municipality that has suffered a delay is likely to take another year for completion, considering the status of some of its key installations.

When the preliminary works began in 2006, the cost of the project was estimated to be around Rs.38 crore and scheduled for completion by the middle of 2007. The estimates were revised more than once and the project, being implemented by Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, is now expected to cost Rs.71.5 crore. The estimates were revised due to change in the route of some of the main sewers and including some areas that were left out when the original project report was prepared.

As not even half-the-project work was completed by the middle of 2007, the authorities fixed June 2008 as the completion date. But even now the project completion is a long way to go.

The prime reason for the delay in the project centres on the main pumping station. It was originally planned to construct this facility near the water-spread area of the Keelkattalai Lake but it was dropped after court rulings, recommendations by an expert committee and protests from environmentalists.

Now, the site for the proposed facility has been shifted away from the lake. The site has been fenced, but there is no indication of work commencing on this crucial facility. Construction of this main pumping station and sinking main conveying sewers to a sewage treatment plant in Perungudi form part of the Rs. 12.5-crore Package V (Five) of the project.

With work yet to commence, the project is likely to take about one year for completion. Pallavaram Municipal Chairman E. Karunanidhi said that but for the main pumping station work, the rest of the project was proceeding briskly.

Four other lift stations and sub-pumping stations were fast nearing completion and in most areas, street-lines and main sewers were laid. Road restoration works were being carried out in as many areas as they could. Litigations and land acquisition problems, that were now sorted out, had severely delayed the project.

Mr. Karunanidhi said the tender process for building the main pumping station in Keelkattalai was completed and was hopeful of works commencing at the earliest. Once completed, it would only be a matter of time before the remaining works are finished, which he said would be less than one year.

Source : The Business Line Date : 11.03.2009

Rs 65-cr modern abattoir coming up in Chennai

M. Ramesh

Chennai, March 10 Anybody who has walked through the slaughterhouse at Perumbudur (or, for that matter, those at Vyasarpadi or Pulianthope) knows the scene is gory.

Animals, bound at the limbs, are slit ear-to-ear and they die kicking and groaning as blood (and life) oozes out. The area stinks with sticky blood and rotting carcasses. The only revellers there are the flies that swarm in millions. “If you visit the place, you will never eat meat again,” observes Mr Rajesh Lakhoni, Commissioner of the Corporation of Chennai.

But all that is set to change. Next week, the corporation will sign the formal agreement with the Aligarh-based Hind Agro Industries Ltd, for a new, modern abattoir at Perumbudur.

PPP model

Hind Agro will invest Rs 65 crore for putting up the facility, which will be run on a public-private partnership (PPP) model. That means, Hind Agro will run two shifts — one for the corporation and the other for itself. In the first shift (the “service shift”) it will slaughter animals for butchers in the neighbourhood, for a nominal fee — Rs 10 for a buffalo or cow and Rs 3.5 for sheep or goat.

“No butcher or retailer in the area will lose his livelihood because of us,” says Dr Surendra Kumar Ranjan, Director, Hind Agro.

The abattoir will be set up in 18 months and will have two lines, one for killing buffaloes and the other for sheep.