Metro Water scouts for more contractors

According to a Metro Water official, the water manager had given permission to 183 contractors to provide sewage connections under the scheme. “As the number of contractors is insufficient to carry out the works across the city, we have decided to give permits to more contractors registered with the Metro Water. There are more than 600 contractors registered with the Metro Water,” the official said.

Despite the scheme, which was launched by the Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on December 2, promising the sewage connections within two days after sending applications, several residents pointed out that the Metro Water is taking 10 to 15 days to provide the connections. As per the new scheme, Metro Water is providing sewage connections to houses without collectingcharges immediately. House owners could pay the charges on instalment basis within five years.

Metro Water data suggest that the higher number of applications under the scheme is being received from extended areas, including Ambattur, Valasaravakkam and others. “Each contractor is able to provide only five sewageconnections per day,” the official added.

As on January 29, the Metro Water has received 6,411 applications seeking sewage connections and the water manager had given connections to 2,006 houses. As of now, ‘Azhaithal Inaippu’ scheme is only applicable for individual houses having ground plus two floors, and multi-storied buildings are exempted from the scheme. Residents in multi-storied buildings should follow old procedure to avail sewage connections.

“There would be lesser number of new construction activities in the core city areas, thus we are receiving a lesser number of applications. On the other hand, many applications are received from extended zones. Each of the eight extended zones in the city could easily have more than 70,000 new houses awaiting sewage connections,” another official said. It is also learnt that only 32 house owners from Sholinganallur zone had applied for the sewage connections. But, the Metro Water had returned all the applications as the underground sewage lines works are yet to be completed.

Explaining the reason for introducing the new scheme, the official said that the scheme would encourage all the building owners to avail sewage connections. “This will prevent letting sewage into storm water drains illegally. The scheme will also protect the owners from the harassing officials,” he added.