The Times of India            28.05.2013

Civic chief extends nullah desilting deadline by a week

AURANGABAD: City civic commissioner Harshdeep Kamble on Monday extended the deadline for desilting nullahs at 60 locations in the city to June 7, and directed all the executive engineers in the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to complete the work before the stipulated time.

A senior civic official said on the condition of anonymity that desilting work on many locations had recently begun. "About 50% work has been completed by the civic body. In the remaining days, we would be able to complete about 35% of the desilting work," he said, indicating that desilting of all the nullahs might not be possible before June 7.

In its drive, the civic body is planning to clear beds of all the nullhas in the city before the monsoon season. In the first phase, the AMC would remove silt before the rainy season, while in the second phase, it would carry out the work throughout the season. Earlier, the civic body had said that desilting of nullahs would be carried out in four months.

The tendering process for the work was initiated on May 6, said another official. "This year, we started inviting tenders well in advance, but there were no takers for desilting some of the nallahs. Moreover, the AMC's financial budget for the current year has not been not approved yet. However, realizing the importance of the work, we started working on the project with an estimated cost of Rs 1.5 crore," he said.

The AMC has allotted the work of cleaning up patches of nullahs in different municipal wards to different agencies. Further, to keep a track of the desilting work, the AMC is also taking photographs of the ongoing process.