VIJAYAWADA: A team of representatives from an Australian research organisation Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) held a meeting with municipal commissioner M Rama Rao and discussed the methods to be followed for the execution of ‘capacity building programme’ to prevent the mixing of commercial and household wastes into the three irrigation canals passing through the city.
It may be recalled that Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) had entered into an MoU with the CRCWSC during Happy Cities Summit in February. As part of the pact, the CRCWSC will provide technical support to VMC in treatment of the wastewater entering the canals. Over the years, it has become a Herculean task for the civic body to tackle the pollution in the canals.
To overcome this problem, the Corporation had mooted the establishment of an on-site wastewater treatment plant but it couldn’t be materialised due to financial and space constraints. Speaking to TNIE on Wednesday, VMC Superintendent Engineer (Projects) J V Rama Krishna said that as part of the MoU, representatives from Australia conducted a ground-level survey to inspect the efforts being made by the civic body to prevent canal pollution. After inspecting the canals, the team lauded the efforts made by the civic body to improve the greenery on the canal bunds and fix the iron meshes on the bridges across the canals to prevent the indiscriminate dumping of waste, he said.
The Superintendent Engineer also said that the Australian team will prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) at an estimated cost of Rs 3 crore for the execution of the ‘capacity building programme’ in the city.
Of the total, CRCWSC will spend Rs 1.5 crore and the remaining amount would be spent by the State government. The team will visit the city once again after April 15 to discuss the DPR and the steps to be taken in order to materialise the programme, he added.