New Delhi The Delhi government will open bids for tenders to install 450 kilometres of the sewer network in Kirari, an unauthorised colony that is being regularised, senior officials of the Delhi Jal Board said on Wednesday.
“This is the biggest ever sewer project in Delhi,” said Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Rituraj Jha, the member of legislative assembly (MLA) for Kirari.
The AAP government has set aside ₹450 crores for the project, senior government officials said. They added that other than the pipelines, the project will comprise the construction of three sewer-pumping stations and will be completed within three years. The whole project is covered under one tender, they said.
The Kirari assembly segment has a population of more than 0.65 million, of which at least 0.25 million are voters, said Jha. Of the 0.45 million non-voters, at least 90% are residents aged under 18 years, while around 22% of the population in the constituency is aged below six.
“As many as 85 of 115 unauthorised pockets in the area now have water connections, concrete roads, street light and soon, they will be covered under the sewer network plan. This was all made possible after 2015, when the AAP came to power. These, added to ownership rights, will make Kirari almost on a par with planned colonies. Kirari will be a success story,” said Jha.
{{/usCountry}}“As many as 85 of 115 unauthorised pockets in the area now have water connections, concrete roads, street light and soon, they will be covered under the sewer network plan. This was all made possible after 2015, when the AAP came to power. These, added to ownership rights, will make Kirari almost on a par with planned colonies. Kirari will be a success story,” said Jha.
{{/usCountry}}More than 80% of the residents are migrants, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. The unauthorised colony in Kirari is one of 1,728 such colonies in the city in which residents will soon get ownership rights.
The news comes as a relief to the residents.
Seventy-seven-year-old Ram Sevak Dubey, a resident of Kirari, said that in 2015, three of his sons and his 10-year-old grandson ended up in the hospital because of dengue. That was the year when hundreds of residents in the neighbourhood, an unauthorised colony in the north-western periphery of the national Capital, suffered from the vector-borne disease.
The reason, most residents said on Wednesday, was the open drains in the locality and Dubey agreed.
Forty-year-old Shoaib Ahmed, a confectioner who resides in Kirari, said, “These drains get clogged and the filthy water overflows even during the dry season, and the situation worsens in monsoons. This also leads to health risks.”
Sunita Gupta, a resident, said that another major issue is increasing street crimes and burglaries. “Now that the government is installing CCTV cameras, I hope that helps in reducing crime,” she said.