Continuing for over five years, the drainage and sewerage projects of Cuttack city undertaken by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) are now rescheduled to be completed in September next year. This was intimated by a high-level JICA team to a Standing House Committee of the State Assembly here on Tuesday.
It may be mentioned that following a massive public outcry during last monsoon, the JICA had announced that the work in both the projects (drainage and sewerage) would be over by 2017. But after the JICA's latest status report, the people of city, who are suffering for over five years now, will have to endure the woes for two more rainy seasons.
For the unplanned and poorly-executed work in digging up roads and drains under the project, the city commuters have been facing untold miseries over these years. More than half a dozen road users have died in the meantime while snapping up of electric cables and telephone cables are also quite common. The same House Committee, which had reviewed the progress of the JICA project last year, had expressed deep concern over the delay in completion of the work.
The project works too have damaged underground drinking water pipes at many places thereby hampering the supply of potable water and triggering spread of jaundice and other water-borne diseases in the city. While the city traffic police wing and the city civic body authorities are disgusted with the ongoing projects, repeated reminders to the JICA by the district administration to complete the work as early as possible have yielded no result.
The JICA sewerage division on Tuesday informed the House Committee that out of an estimated Rs 810.83 crore for the project, the JICA till date has spent only Rs 395.72 crore, thereby indicating that more than 50 per cent work will now have to be done in next 17 months. The drainage division, however, informed that their work would be over by July 2018.
The House Committee comprising nine MlAs, including local legislator Pravat Biswal, also reviewed the progress of certain other ongoing projects in the district including a railway over bridge and an underpass of the National Highway passing through the city.