Reshaping Kolkata's Sewers

Come monsoon and every year frustrated citizens are reminded over and over again of Kolkata’s choked underground drainage systems. Camac Street in Central Kolkata resembles a rivulet during rains with rickshaw pullers ferrying office goers to and fro at premium rates through the flooded streets. Every year harried Kolkatans debate and discuss what should be done and what should not be done to alleviate the problems but promptly forget everything once the rains depart. We know the government is taking action to improve matters but till I heard Mick I had no idea about the scale of the work involved.

Mick Head has now spent over four years in Kolkata as a consultant  with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) working on sewerage renovation projects. Amongst the many wonderful contributions of the British to our society the sewerage system of Kolkata which has sustained our over crowded city over the years stands out. I went out of curiosity to attend a presentation on his work with the KMC at the British Club. It was a fascinating look at the world beneath our feet. Kolkata is amongst the first three cities in the world where such underground sewerage systems were first planned and installed.

Mick had to start from zero point without any blueprint of the existing underground sewage system in hand. It was a tough task. The KMC has no records of the original layout and nobody had any idea where exactly and how the sewage channels were located. The municipal authorities got hold of an octogenarian engineer, who had worked as an assistant engineer with the department in his youth, to help them out. He was taken around the streets of Kolkata to locate the exact position of the lines. In most cases the old man got it right though there were no identifiable marks on the surface. Mick spoke about the manholes which had disappeared from the streets of the city being periodically covered up by various road repairing jobs done over the years. The manholes are extremely useful landmarks and it is sad that they are vanishing from the city gradually.

Kolkata’s existing sewerage system is built in  such  a manner that the city should have never ever faced any flooding problems during heavy monsoon rains. But extreme apathy, lack of awareness, lack of finance and general lack of will have led to absolutely no maintenance job being done over these years. As a result the sewerage tunnels are heavily clogged, in many places the roof and the sides of the insides of the tunnels are damaged severely with bricks falling off and roots of plants and other waste material hanging from various spots. There are heavy duty machines available to clear the mess but it is impossible to bring the machines to India and even more difficult to take them back due to various regulations and red tape. Hence the entire work has to be done manually. The local union have rules about number of people to be used in such  projects. Thus there are more men hanging around the sites than required. Most of them have no expertise to do such work.

A similar project in Dresden, Germany could be completed in nine months .In Kolkata it took over four and a half years.And still to be completed. On one occasion Mick spotted a letter dating back to 1968 on the table of a government officer during a meeting .The letter had never been actioned. That was Mick’s comment on our notorious work culture. He did mention that there are however some very competent engineers and workers who are braving every odds to make these projects successful. The work is complex and requires high level of engineering knowledge and expertise.

The glass reinforced fibre coated new pipelines have been laid with marvellous engineering precision and the new pathways look gorgeous. One is tempted to go for a leisurely walk along those wide tunnels. Mick cautioned that merely renovating old systems will not help, regular maintenance is critical if we have to free the city from unwanted flooding every year. Mick showed some very captivating photographs of the nether world including pictures of fishes swimming in the muck. Who knows if these fishes actually found their way into the tables of Bengali homes.It was fascinating to know that across the globe Mick's team had found discarded shopping trolleys, computers,corpses and live alligators cohabiting in various sewerage tunnels .An amazing world indeed.

 A big thank you to Mick and his team on behalf of Kolkata. Experts like him have shown the direction and now it is on us to carry on the good work. Can we?

Acknowledgements (pics)

http://assets.knowledge.allianz.com/img/rickshaw_flooding_quer_10050.jpg

https://www.kmcgov.in/KMCPortal/outside_jsp/ManEntrySewerKolutola.jsp