Sewerage Yojna of Indiranagar, Gomtinagar stuck due to land issue

LUCKNOW: The Sewerage Yojna to benefit localities of Indiranagar, Gomtinagar, Ismailganj, Chinhat and Faizabad Road may take another 6 months to complete as the land near Picnic Spot Road proposed for building sewage pumping station has not been given by the forest department to Jal Nigam. It requires laying of around 36 kms of pipeline including the main trunk line besides setting up pumping station.
The project was initiated under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to benefit over a lakh people living in areas like Amrai, Indiranagar, parts of Gomtinagar, Sarvodaya Nagar, Shaktinagar, Chinhat, Malhoure, Faizabad Road, Ismailganj, Kamta etc. This needed laying of around 353 kms of sewer pipelines out of which more than 290 kms have been laid.
Jal Nigam said, the pipelines in this part would be laid by the end of June. Under similar project, pipelines were also to be laid towards east of Kukrail Nullah in colonies of Faridinagar, Chandangaon, Vimalkunj, Manas Vihar etc. Here, apart from the 36 km pipeline that has to be laid around sewage pumping station on the forest land, Jal Nigam has to lay another stretch of 60 kms pipelines too.
Officials said that talks are on with the forest department for last 2 years but they haven’t received the land. An official in Jal Nigam said “Ideally the land has to be provided by the Municipal Corporation. But in this case, the agency could not help us in finding a suitable land for building sewage pumping station. Hence, we ourselves identified the land near Picnic Spot Road.” This is about 900 square metre land in Faridinagar.
He added, “It is being expected that talks are in the final stage and forest department can handover land anytime to us.” The construction of station would require another 5-6 months, hence the project got delayed. Besides Faridinagar station, two more pumping stations are proposed – on Faizabad Road and the other one in Amrai. Officials said that the construction of Faizabad Road station is nearly complete while the one in Amrai is 50% pending. Due to court’s stay order, work is halted in Amrai station.
In a recent visit to city to review JNNURM’s progress, the secretary, Urban Development Ministry, GOI, Sudhir Krishna also pointed out that the sewerage Yojna in above mentioned areas has been delayed due to land issue. He said the project could only achieve 70% completion status till date. Municipal commissioner RK Singh said, “The sewerage project has to be commissioned by December, 2014 and we are expecting to get the land soon.”