City goes for a UGD revamp at a cost of Rs. 300 crore

Frequent bursting of underground drainage lines and drinking water distribution lines may soon become a thing of past. In order to address the problem, the Tiruchi City Corporation plans for a total revamp of UGD and drinking water supply schemes that had been formed about 6 to 8 decades ago in the city at an estimate of Rs. 300 crore.

The project will be implemented under the Smart City project. A consultant has been appointed to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) after studying the issues around the existing UGD scheme, a part of it which was laid during pre-Independence period.

Corporation Commissioner N. Ravichandran told The Hindu that there had been reports of frequent malfunctioning of old UGD, mainly in the erstwhile Tiruchi municipality limit. Similarly, there were complaints of unequal distribution of water supply in some areas due to low pressure. In some places, the drinking water pipes were 60 to 80 years old. Moreover, the design had become outdated. The city’s physical infrastructure had seen numerous changes and improvement since then. Hence, it has been decided to revamp the old pipelines of the UGD and drinking water schemes in the city.

He said the proposed scheme would be implemented under the Area Based Development component of Smart City projects. It would cover 7 square km around Rockfort temple. Besides the residential and commercial streets around Rockfort temple, it would cover Thillai Nagar and Uraiyur in the west, Bheema Nagar, Palakkarai and Cantonment in the south and East Boulevard Road and Varaganeri in the east.

Mr. Ravichandran said that a private consultant has been appointed to study the issues related to the old underground drainage system and drinking water supply system. The consultant has been assigned to prepare a DPR, which would be shortly placed before the high power committee of Smart City projects in Chennai for approval.
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