Delhi: Desilting of 32.58 km of peripheral sewer lines completed, remaining to be done by June

New Delhi [India], April 15 : Desilting of 32.58 km out of the 90.34 km of the trunk/peripheral sewer lines has been completed and the remaining work will be completed by June this year, read a statement issued by Delhi Lieutenant Governor's (LG) office.

Delhi LG Vinay Kumar Saxena has reviewed the progress of works regarding the desilting of trunk sewer lines and trapping of sub-drains falling into the Najafgarh drains yesterday, informed the statement.

The statement informed that Saxena, who is also the chairman of NGT-appointed High-Level Committee (HLC) for the rejuvenation of river Yamuna, on Friday reiterated that the flood plains and Ghats of the Yamuna will be cleaned by June 30 this year, while other works will continue simultaneously.

Ever since, the L-G took charge as chairman of the HLC, after the NGT's order of January 9 this year, he has chaired 3 monthly meetings of the committee, apart from reviewing the progress of works through several intermittent meetings with concerned officials, the statement said.

It was informed that, of the 90.34 trunk/peripheral sewer lines targeted to be desilted by June 2023, 32.58 kms have been completed already and the remaining will be completed well within June when the monsoon sets in. The L-G directed that the remaining 530 kms of sewer lines is to be completed by the end of this year.

The statement further said that major sewer lines where works have been completed or are in progress till now, are Moti Nagar trunk, Gravity duct I, Keshavpur and Nilothi trunk, Kalyan Vihar, GT Road, Vijay Nagar, etc. on Narela and Coronation Pillar trunk, Okhla trunk and Dwarka trunk.

The L-G was informed that of the 44 major sub-drains falling into the Najafgarh drain identified for trapping, 17 had already been trapped and the remaining will be trapped by October 2023. The major sub-drains trapped till now include Hakikat Nagar drain, Shakti Nagar sub-drain 2, Rana Pratap Bagh drain and Balak Ram drain, added the statement.

Further, according to the release, of the 30 sub-drains falling into the Supplementary Drain, 13 drains had been trapped and the remaining will be trapped by October 2023. The sub-drains trapped include the Badli sub-drain, Wazirabad sub-drain and Rohini Sector 16 sub-drain.

"It has been established that about 70% of pollution in the Yamuna is due to the untreated sewerage brought into the river from the Najafgarh drain. The Najafgarh drain, in turn, gets this untreated sewer from the sub-drains falling into it," read the statement.

The root cause of this untreated sewage is the fact that the trunk and peripheral sewer lines have been choked to as much as 90% of their capacity due to their desilting not having been carried out by the Delhi Jal Board for the last 08 years. Choked and silted sewer lines lead to sewerage overflowing into storm water drains that fall into the Najafgarh drain, the release said.

Further, as per the statement, these sewer lines which are supposed to be desilted and cleaned on a regular basis are supposed to carry the sewerage to STPs for treatment, before reaching the Yamuna.

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