Once again the Kolkata Municipal Corporation will cite space crunch at Dhapa, the only waste-disposal ground in the city, for the delay in the implementation of a Rs 500 crore project to de-silt the age-old underground sewerage system of the city that has been sanctioned under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

The problem
The engineers of the planning and development department of the civic body are clueless of where to dump the silt that will be taken out of the city’s drain since the solid waste management cell recently turned down their plea of using the dumping ground at Dhapa.
The total amount of silt likely to be removed from the underground sewerage system of the city will be over 30,000 metric tonnes.
“The brick sewers are being cleaned after a span of thirty years. Since the silt is likely to increase pollution and Dhapa is used only for the disposal of solid waste, this may have prompted the solid waste management department to turn down our’s plea,” said a senior engineer of the planning and development department.
At present, permission to begin de-silting operations has been given for 23 sites of the city.
The work has, however, begun at five places, all of which are located in central Kolkata.
“The work of drilling has just begun at the project sites. We are yet to remove the silt from the sewers. But until we have an alternative dumping ground, it makes little sense to remove the silt,” the engineer added. Under these circumstances the de-silting operations is likely to come to a halt.

Dhapa! No way
With the height of Dhapa dumping ground having already risen by 50 mts, the solid waste management department justifies its decision to reject the engineers’ plea.
“Dhapa is KMC’s only dumping ground. It is already full. There is hardly any room left for disposing the solid waste materials that accumulate in the city. So we will not be able to provide any dumping ground to the planning and development department to dump the silt that is removed from underground,” said Chandana Ghosh Dastidar, member, mayor in council of the solid waste management department.
“We are trying to get new land where the regular municipal waste can be disposed of,” added Ghosh.