A Rejoinder to the article –"Imphal sewerage project getting its final thrust"

Joykumar Yumnam *

The Imphal Sewerage Project treatment plant site in Lamphelpat, Imphal West district :: Pix - TSE

An article from your staff reporter about Imphal sewerage project bagging front page headline of your publication of 28/5/2014 attracted my attention. I have been observing and following the development of this project over the last 10 years with real concern. From a layman's point of view, this project appears to be unsustainable. However, your reporter seems to differ from this view and sounds very positive after talking to the PHED engineers and officials. According to the article, this project will become a reality and likely to be completed by the end of 2015 if not by march 2015. The report also mentions that engineers from France have examined drilling of manholes as well as the laying of underground pipes done in the first phase and found all these works and gradient of the pipe line perfect.

I have strong doubts about the findings and conclusions of the French engineers, PHED engineers and officials for the following reasons:-

As far as I know and learnt from the former PHED engineers, Imphal sewerage project is an experimental one taken up by France to test its sustainability. No similar project exists anywhere in the world. France is planning to reproduce this proto type of sewerage system for their cities and possibly for other countries in case it succeeds. In view of this, it will not be possible for any engineer to certify the manhole dug, the gradient of the pipe lines laid are perfect.

This is much more so in the context of Imphal sewerage project because laying of the pipelines had been done on piece meal basis by a large no of sub-contractors who had never had any experience of such work. Are we sure of maintaining proper gradient from one portion constructed by one contractor to another portion done by another contractor? Also the pipe lines are not straight ones. There are bends at certain intervals. What is the gradient required at these bends for the sewerage to flow freely without blockage?

Further what sort of supervision was carried out by the supervisory technical staff at the time of the pipe laying? Were those staffs technically qualified or even aware of the complex technical requirements of this project? It is easy for a civil engineer to supervise the construction of a building or a bridge where the supervision required by the subordinate technical staff is to merely check whether the drawing has been followed , whether quality and proportion of the materials being used has been maintained. In this project the technical specifications will be much more complex and difficult as the numerous portions in which the pipe laying work had been divided, are earth covered portion by portion once the portion is completed. It would have been easier if the pipe laying had been done for the entire length in the open and then the gradient examined.

It was not the case in this project. It was also observed during the pipe laying work that there was hardly any supervision done by technical experts. It is felt that a proper and more thorough evaluation of the work already completed needs to be carried out by a team of really competent technical experts before drawing any conclusion about the completed work meeting satisfactory technical requirement. This is so because if the project fails, Imphal city will be a stinking living hell unfit for human habitation. The same would also lead to wide spread epidemics of various kinds of diseases.

Another aspect of the project touched upon in the report of your staff reporter is the requirement of substantial volume of water for the drainage of house hold effluents including human excreta through these sewerage pipes. The report also talks about the scarcity of water in the city and that the state faces serious shortage of water for at least 3 months. While it has not been possible even to provide adequate water for house hold consumption in the Imphal area, where will one get the required volume of water to run this drainage project?

One is reminded of the panic of the residents of Imphal recently when even the rivers had gone dry and there was not enough water for even cooking purposes. It may also be mentioned that serious shortage of water in Imphal city is not merely confined to 3 months but almost 6 months. Even presuming that the water scarcity months are only 3, what will happen during these water scarcity periods?

Will the households covered by this project be required to keep all their household effluents including human excreta for these months piled up at their residential complexes? What will be the effect on health and general atmosphere from these pileups for 3 months? Also after the 3 months when adequate water becomes available, how will these pileups be removed? PHED officials and engineers should clearly spell out solution of this problem. For me, the problem defies solution given the project parameters and details.

Yet another aspect which PHED engineers and officials failed to highlight to your staff reporter is the quantum of power required to operate the electrical pumps which will push through the wastage through the sewerage pipes to the treatment area. Surely without the use of pump the wastages including solid ones will not flow through the pipe line merely by gravity. When the state is facing huge power deficit and is not able to meet even the bare minimum requirement of the household, where will one get the required power supply for the project?

The sewerage project would require supply of the necessary power 24x7. The state power department has not been able to give power supply 24x7 throughout the year even for the dedicated lines called the VIP lines. The general public at the best of time has been able to get power supply for only about 3 to 4 hours a day. Now, if for the sake of success of this project, power available in the state grid is diverted to this project, then power availability to the general public will be so drastically reduced that they will have to do without power supply. Considering the uncertainty of the success of this project on various counts already enumerated above, is the project worth such supreme sacrifice by the city dwellers?

Another alarming aspect of the project is the advice conveyed to the residents covered by the project through Para 14 of the article that the residents may not construct / keep septic tanks within their residential compounds. It is not clear what the PHED officials are advocating. Are they advocating that no septic tank should be constructed by any of these residents within their residential compounds and in place of the septic tank, the outlet of the toilet should be fed directly to the sewerage pipe?

Or are they suggesting that the septic tanks should be constructed outside the residential compound and on the road / sewerage pipe lines? Are the PHED official sure that such an arrangement would be workable? It may be stated that many latrines get choked due to non use of adequate quantity of water for flushing or due to some other defects.

To substantiate this, one may merely need to go and see any of the public toilets. The question therefore is how to prevent choking at the intake point itself from the house hold to the main sewerage pipes. Further, what will be the required gradients of these sub network s of pipe lines bringing the wastage from the households to the main sewerage pipelines? Has this been worked out?

It has also been mentioned in the article that after the rainy season, laying of underground pipes along inter village roads and streets would be kick started. I presume that this would include all the bye lanes in Imphal city. This would lead to the digging up of all the bye lanes resulting into non serviceability of these networks of roads.

Here I would like to emphasize that these networks provide access to each household from the main roads. Based on the experience of the 1st phase of this project in which the networks of sewerage pipe lines on the main roads were laid, the proposed laying of underground pipes along the inter village roads and streets would take at least about another 5 to 10 years. During this period, how will the citizens of Imphal covered by this project have access to their homes?

Will they have to abandon their homes or will the state govt. provide alternate route for the affected residents to access their homes? If so, how will the govt. meet the land and financial requirement for the same? It may be pointed out that the digging of roads in the first phase led to extreme inconveniences to the general public which seriously affected their health and mental peace.

In any other place, the general public would have filed PIL claiming heavy compensation from the state govt. for causing mental trauma and damage to their general health. For one reason or the other, the general public of Imphal has been extremely patient and bore the above privation. I am not sure whether the general public would have enough patience to undergo similar mental trauma and damage to their general health for another 5 or 10 more years.

I am aware that the present state govt. took up this project with the bona fide intention of making Imphal city a clean and healthy one. It is true that Imphal does not have a proper sewerage system. But the question here is whether the present Imphal sewerage project is the answer to it. As already mentioned in the forgoing paras this project was taken up with the aids from France on trial basis. For this reason, it is not certain whether this will succeed or not.

Such a system could have been experimented and tried out in respect of a newly planned township under construction. For a township already in existence for hundreds of years, this experimentation requiring digging up of already existing roads, lanes and laying pipelines underground with a complex network of sub pipeline connection to each household may not be a right decision.

A desperate patient who sees no hope of recovering may subscribe to experimentation as a guinea pig for his cure and survival. In terms of sewerage disposal problem, Imphal town is not in the condition of a desperate patient with a terminal illness. It would therefore be wrong to expose the residents of Imphal town to this guinea pig experimentation when the prospect of success of this project is very dim.

In the end, I feel that PHED officials who had initially examined the proposal of the French govt. for this project did not do their homework properly. They failed to take into consideration the necessary technical and other requirements for the successful execution of the project. Availability of adequate quantity of water, quantum of power required, complexity of laying down of underground pipelines under already existing roads and bye roads, feasibility of connecting sub pipe lines to each household and the living style of the residents under the project area should have been minutely assessed and examined.

It seems this exercise was never carried out. The time frame for completion of the project and the requirement of fund should also have been realistically worked out. What is in store are uncertainty of the time frame of completion of the execution of the project and the final figure of fund required. The cost of the project has already escalated much beyond its original estimate. The prospect today is that scarce fund which could have been utilized for more meaningful and useful purposes is required and being diverted to this project.

In view of the above, I would therefore like to urge the state govt. of Manipur, PHED dept and all the concerned govt. functionaries to ponder over the serious shortcoming and limitations of the project and carry out an in-depth and honest review of the same and get it evaluated by a panel of experts having the appropriate technical expertise.

I would also like to appeal to all the concerned citizens of Imphal and other knowledgeable persons to do introspection about the feasibility of this project and come out with positive suggestions so that in our desire to make Imphal city a healthy and clean one, we do not convert it into a living hell through our ignorance, carelessness and irresponsibility.