The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Sewer, water projects hang fire

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 07, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Sewer, water projects hang fire

By K.V. Prasad

COIMBATORE, MARCH 6. Even six years after the Coimbatore Corporation proposed underground sewers for more than half of the 72 wards, the scheme to rid the city of stagnating sewage in open drains is yet to become a reality.

Schemes for a subway and the Rs.105-crore Pilloor second phase to provide the city with 125 million litres a day (mld) of drinking water also hang fire.

The sewer scheme was proposed in late 1998 at Rs. 208 crores. Cost escalation over five years of resistance to user charges raised it to Rs. 250 crores.

The State Government provided only Rs. 3 crores as grant. The rest of the cost was to be borne by the Corporation with loans from the World Bank.

To reduce the repayment burden for the Corporation, some of the project's `sophisticated' components had been excluded to reduce the cost to Rs. 167 crores.

The Council approved the scheme last year after the scaling down of the one-time connection and monthly maintenance charges.

Sources in the civic body say the Government had accorded sanction but the process of obtaining loans from the World Bank and inviting of bids for implementation is not progressing at the desired pace.

Funding option

With the Opposition's plea for funds under the National River Conservation Programme (as River Noyyal is polluted by sewage) having been turned down, the Corporation had only loans as the funding option and user charges as the repayment source.

The other key project for the city is the second phase of the Pilloor drinking water scheme. The first phase and the Siruvani scheme together supply a little more than 110 mld to the city. With soaring demand for water, the second phase that was proposed by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board in 1999 is said to be awaiting technical sanction by the Central Water Commission.

The Corporation had said it would be crushed under a huge financial burden due to loans for both the drainage and water schemes.

It felt that the water scheme could be implemented only with substantial grant. But with no possibility of grant and the dire need for the scheme, the civic body had only the loan option. "So, uncertainty over the scheme persists," the sources say.

The project for a subway at the congested Gandhipuram junction had a second coming. It was shelved even after a commemorative plaque to mark its launch was unveiled way back in 1997.

People found the foot over bridge that came up instead too steep. This had forced the Corporation to revive the subway project. But it is now only in the designing stage.

The other pending project is a bus stand on Mettupalayam Road for buses bound for Mettupalayam and the Nilgiris. It had been proposed to decongest the Central Bus Stand at Gandhipuram. The sources say that the Government cleared the project recently.

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