Govt begins cleaning of key 6.85-km trunk sewer line

New Delhi: Delhi Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood on Wednesday inaugurated the long-pending cleaning of the 6.85-kilometre trunk sewer line between Jail Road and the Keshopur Sewage Treatment Plant, a project set to cost Rs 13 crore and provide major relief to several west Delhi neighbourhoods suffering from repeated sewer overflow.

Officials said the main trunk line, roughly 1.5 metres in diameter, had accumulated nearly 65 per cent silt after years of neglect. The resulting choke points had been triggering severe drainage and overflow problems in Virender Nagar, Shiv Nagar, Hari Nagar and multiple blocks of Janakpuri. “This trunk sewer line is being cleaned after many years, whereas norms require desilting every five years,” Sood said at the site, adding that records show only a small portion of the pipeline was cleaned in 2013.

He added that the neglect by previous governments had caused “years of inconvenience” for residents of west Delhi. The current clean-up will involve temporary diversion of sewer flow through bypass lines and the use of advanced machinery to extract compacted silt.

The minister said the tendering process for the project has been completed and that the restored line would “provide major relief from sewer overflow” to affected colonies. He also announced that a new 200-metre sewer line is being laid beneath the District Centre metro station to strengthen drainage capacity in Janakpuri.