Arrest dumping of undesirable effluents into Tawi river: Jammu divisional commissioner

A senior government official in Jammu has called for an ambitious project to arrest the dumping of undesirable effluents into the Tawi river during a review meeting held on the progress of various ongoing sewerage network projects and new plants proposed for the city.

Jammu Divisional Commissioner Raghav Langer directed the agencies to categorize their targets concerning the number of households, effluent volume, and nallahs (streams) to be tapped after seeking detailed stage-wise progress on each portion of the city's sewerage network, officials said on Sunday.

The officials said Langer expressed concern over the dumping of undesirable city effluents into Tawi river and asked the agencies concerned to design the ambitious project to check the hazard at the earliest and set separate targets on the project for its right and left banks.

The meeting was informed that roughly 40 percent of the projected number of households and its population on the right bank of the river has been linked with sewerage lines and the projects for saturating the rest of the population are under preparation, officials said.

They said a total of 293 kilometers of sewerage network has been laid on the right bank in parts of Jammu East and Jammu West areas (Zone I&II), while a total of 55,000 households have been tapped to date under the ongoing projects.

There are a total of 13 nallahs draining into the river on the right bank and the departmental officials apprised the Divisional Commissioner that about Rs 500 crore shall be required to fully tap them and create a complete network to fully cover all households on the right bank of the city, the officials said.

They said NBCC was reprimanded for not being able to complete the balance of 1,850 household connections under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) or languishing sector schemes and the deadline of January 15, 2022, was set for the same.

The officials said work on a sewerage scheme costing Rs 51 crore is under progress through the Urban Environmental Engineering Department (UEED) on the left bank of Tawi, in which five nallahs are to be tapped.

Work on a four million liters per day (MLD) sewage treatment plant is complete while another sewerage network is progressing at a very slow pace, the officials said.

The UEED was directed by the Divisional Commissioner to invoke a penalty clause on the contractor and get work executed at the risk and cost of the defaulting contractor, they said.

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