As per the earlier orders of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, the JICA-assisted Odisha Integrated Sanitation Improvement Project (OISIP) works in the twin city of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar have been fastened in last 8 months.
The overall progress in the project has been scaled to 55 per cent. This was reviewed in a high level meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Padhi on Thursday.
Secretary Housing and Urban Development G Mathivathanan outlined the issues and the project executing agency presented the updates for discussion.
It was targeted to commission the project by December, 2018. Taking into account the zone wise progress, it was targeted to commission the Zone-1 part of the project within December, 2017.
The issues regarding use of railway and national highway land for laying of project were discussed and resolved in the meeting. The matters relating to issue of NOC from the Railways and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for construction of pumping station at Khannagar of Cuttack, laying of pipeline from the OMP square to the Malgodwon road, crossing of the NH at required points etc, were discussed in details with senior officers of the Railways and the National Highway Development Authority present in the meeting and necessary solutions were arrived at.
Chief Secretary Padhi directed the department and the project authorities to expeditiously clear the interdepartmental issues for carrying forward the field level work without any halt.
Sources said the OISIP includes 632 km of sewer network (252 km in Bhubaneswar and 380 km in Cuttack), three Sewerage Treatment Plants (two in Cuttack and one in Bhubaneswar), 48 pumping stations and seven sluice gates in the Twin City. Along with that, Cuttack will have 23,043 meters of drainage through the project. The project cost has been estimated around Rs 2,974 crore out of which the Government of Odisha provides Rs 594 crore and the JICA loan component is around Rs 2,380 crore.
As of now, more than 55 per cent of the overall physical progress has been achieved in execution of the project. The achievement in construction of sewerage line varies from 61 to 50 per cent in both the cities. The achievement in construction of sewerage treatment plant and pumping stations has been more than 63 per cent. Similarly, the drainage works in Cuttack have also been fastened. GIS-based data about the sewerage and water supply network in the Twin City has been developed. It will help all households to know the exact position of sewerage and water line from their house and plan their own connections accordingly. Since many critical ground level works have been done, engineers expect faster execution of the project in coming months.
Chief Secretary Padhi directed to complete the constructions and provide services to the people within the scheduled time.