KOCHI: The water adjoining Marine Drive, a popular hangout spot for the city’s residents, is not a fresh water body but a sewage pool.
The revelation was made in the affidavit filed by the Kochi Corporation before the High Court on Tuesday. As per the corporation, 65 sewage pipes from apartment complexes and commercial buildings constructed along the Marine Drive walkway are connected to the backwaters. While most of them are PVC pipes of 6-inch diameter, some are cement pipes.
The corporation stated that it had served notices on all builders adjacent to the walkway to ensure the installation and operation of sewage treatment plants in their respective buildings. The affidavit was filed in response to a petition by Ranjit G Thampi seeking to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the authorities concerned, including the corporation and the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) for not complying with the court’s order.
As per the petition, the court had, on several occasions, directed the GCDA to install CCTV cameras, repair and replace damaged tiles, avoid waterlogging on the walkway and provide toilets.
The corporation had conducted an inspection to find out the draining of waste water into Kochi backwaters. The team noticed that there were 14 pipes directly connecting Purva Oceanus apartment complex to a canal that empties into the backwaters. The corporation workers immediately closed the pipes. Meanwhile, the corporation said work on closing the waste water pipes to the backwaters is in progress. As of January 4, 30 pipes were closed.
The civic body said it will take three weeks to close all the drains completely owing to the difficulty in excavating the buried pipes and cutting and filling them with concrete. The corporation informed the court that it was not removing waste from areas under GCDA’s control as authority was involved in the tender for removing the garbage from Marine Drive. “The Marine Drive ground and the walkway are managed by GCDA and the authority is collecting rent and other fee from the institutions it built and rented out. The GCDA and the corporation have not entered into any agreement for removing waste from the area,” the corporation said. It said installing dustbins at Marine drive was also the GCDA’s responsibility.