The Times of India      27.08.2014  

Plan for one sewerage for Patna, Phulwari?

PATNA:
The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) along with Bihar Rajya Jal
Parshad has come up with an action plan to keep low-lying areas of the
city free from waterlogging.

The state urban development
department had directed the civic body to prepare such a report so that
long term steps could be taken to rid these areas of waterlogging. The
topography of the city is saucer shaped, posing difficulty in flushing
out water from areas such as Sipara, Hind Nagar, IOC Colony, Ramkrishna
Nagar, Shivaji Chowk and Lalu Path besides Kankarbagh, Rajendra Nagar
and Kumrahr areas.

At present the rainwater of east and central
Patna capital area is being drained out through Pahari and Nand Lal
Chhapra drain to Badshahi and Khanua drains. The Badshahi drain needs to
be widened and strengthened, says the report.

Areas such as
Pakari, Dashratha, Etwarpur, Sipara, Dhalwan and Gopalpur, lying south
of bypass, suffer from acute waterlogging problem. Also unplanned
constructions without proper sewerage in these areas aggravated the
problem. These areas have since 2008 seen massive constructions which
eventually turned the sparsely populated areas into densely populated
ones. The report suggests the need of an integrated drainage network to
ensure proper drainage system in Patna civic body and Phulwarisharif
civic body areas.

As for accumulation of rainwater in Jakkanpur
is concerned, accumulated water earlier used to flow into Mithapur’s
agricultural fields. But now new institutions and constructions have
come up on the vacant land, due to which rainwater flows to low-lying
nearby areas such as Karbigahiya, Postal Park, Ashok Nagar etc. The
report suggests construction of a sump house north of NH 31 and a drain
along the railway line up to Badshahi drain to free these areas of
waterlogging.