Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir with a population of over 1.5 million, has 650 km of drain – 1000 km short of the requirement.
The city has a requirement of the drainage system, meant to drain out stormwater and sewage – of around 1650 km, officials at a workshop held today revealed.
The workshop was conducted at The Institution of Engineers (India) Jammu and Kashmir headed by Aamir Ali here to formulate a plan and discuss adequate arrangements to dispose of the sewerage coming out from a city.
“City is short of 1000 km of drains to drain sewage and stormwater … the outfall is mostly through 85 permanent and 35 temporary Mechanical dewatering stations besides gravity outfall channels,” said Er Sheikh Sajid Yaseen.
Khursheed Ahmad Ganie, the former Advisor to J&K administration, was the chief guest at the workshop and Pandurag K Pole, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir was the guest of honour.
The workshop was informed that raw sewage was being pumped into water bodies through drains which damaged the ecology of the water bodies. “Due to high courts’ intervention, pumping of raw sewage into Dal Lake has been stopped to large extent,” another official said.
Ehsan ul Haq, Superintending Engineer Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), while deliberating over the issue said that the drainage system in the city has been challenging as the city has fewer drains.
“The network of drains need to be furthered along main and arterial roads and newly developed areas,” the official said.
“Due to the city’s topography, geography and dense population, serious steps are needed to be taken to face the future challenges and cope up with the current,” said the official.
He said the “absence of an integrated approach leads to technical maintenance inefficiencies”.
As per the data available with SMC, the Srinagar city generates 170 Million Liters Per Day (MLD) sewage while having a capacity of sewage treatment of 53.20 MLD.
The officials emphasized the need for an integrated mechanism and rued about the lack of coordination among different agencies working in the city.
“Out of my immediate experience in the past few days as commissioner of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), whether it is SMC, Irrigation and Flood Control, or UEED, (they) do things in their own ways,” Athar Amir, the SMC Commissioner, said.
“There have been issues over the construction of a single toilet in a certain space, one agency wants it and the other says no. I think this is something that we definitely need to look over,” he said.
Additional General Manager National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), Naresh Madan called for setting up of single window system for immediate disposal of clearances for timely completion of works
