City lacks comprehensive plan for storm-water drains: report

City lacks comprehensive plan for storm-water drains: report

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Feb 8: The draft city development plan for Mangalore City Corporation prepared by a Government-appointed agency in its report has pointed out that construction of roadside drains has not been given the required priority in the city.

Only 41 per cent of the road network was covered under tertiary drains, the report submitted to the corporation recently said. Centre for Symbiosis Technology, Environment and Management (STEM), Bangalore, had prepared the draft report for the corporation. It said that there was no comprehensive plan for improving storm-water drains in the city.

There was encroachment along natural drains, it said without any specific reference. The report said that in the old areas of the city, the drains provided were of low capacity and were overloaded.

It said that operation and maintenance of drains were not up to the mark. It pointed out that there was no industrial/hazardous waste management facility in the region. There was indiscriminate burning of waste and illegal disposal of waste in to the sea which would cause serious public health and lead to environment issues in future.

The draft said that waste collection, loading and unloading operations were being done manually. The sanitary workers were not provided with any protective equipment posing health hazards. It said that residents were not interested in segregating solid waste at source and only 40 per cent of the households were covered under door-to-door solid waste collection system in the city.

The report said that 13 per cent of the city was not covered with the sewer network due to topographical constraints and sewage was being discharged into natural course. The existing sewage treatment plants were not running efficiently, due to which the sewage was not treated completely, it said. hindu