Nellore: The ongoing works of Underground Drainage (UGD) Scheme and Water Supply improvement scheme have become a curse to the Nellore public even as the schemes are intended to address decade-long problems. The flip side of the schemes is that every road is damaged for laying pipelines and reaching homes is proving to be a herculean task in many places.
Rains have worsened the condition of these dug-up roads adding to the woes of the people. The situation is such that general body meeting of Nellore Corporation is being held on November 30 exclusively to discuss on the ordeals of the people because of the grounding of two schemes worth Rs 1,077 crore funded by Hudco.
Every road and lane in the city is dug-up twice for laying pipeline for water supply scheme in the edge of road and for the UGD in the middle of the road. The dug up roads remain uncovered for more than 10 days in the road junctions in case of UGD to construct inspection chambers and manholes.
Public health officials have been maintaining that people have to bear with the bad roads for at least three more months after completion of the works. The works under water scheme will be completed by December 2018 and UGD works by May 2019.
However, there is no guarantee in the works completing as per schedule because of weather conditions and change of location of Sewerage Treatment Plants (STP) in view of legal issues and soil problems at headwater works and Baktavatsala Nagar.
Indian Institute of Technology-Madras team has recommended a change of location with respect to STP at headwater works due to soil problem and legal issues led to stop STP works at B.V. Nagar and change the location to government site next to RTA office.
With respect to restoration of roads, public health officials said only the dug up portion will be re-laid if the width of road is more than three metres. Full width of the road will be re-laid if the width of the road is less than three metres. Interestingly, new CC roads have been laid spending lakhs of rupees even though the launch of the works of UGD and Water Schemes was in the offing.
A resident of Magunta Layout, P.T. Mukund questioned the rationale behind laying new cement roads few months before launching the two schemes pointing to burden to the exchequer. He maintained that the officials are aware about grounding the schemes since they have not bothered to construct drains, which are common for all new roads. A resident of Usman Saheb Peta in the City, Vinay Kumar said he was forced to take a hotel room for his mother because there was 5 feet deep trench dug up before his home and there was no scope for his aged mother, who came from Hyderabad, to enter the house during heavy rains 10 days back.
