Vellore begins household connections under ₹1,000-crore sewer project

Vellore Corporation has begun connecting homes to its underground drainage network, with about 71,000 connections planned under the project’s second and third phases. The ₹1,000-crore scheme is moving into household service more than a decade after it was proposed.

Commissioner A. Catherine Saranya told The Hindu that connections had started in areas covered by phases two and three. Those phases will serve much of the town, which has about 141,000 households. The covered areas include Alamelumangapuram, Sathuvachari, Shenbakkam, Konavattam, Kaspa and Velapadi.

The four-phase project is being implemented under the 2016–17 Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation, or AMRUT. Its infrastructure comprises roughly 750 kilometres of sewer lines, 16 pumping and lifting stations and two major sewage treatment plants.

Officials said difficult sections had been completed, including 32 kilometres along the service lane of the Chennai–Bengaluru highway, NH 48, 16 railway crossing points and seven kilometres of state-highway stretches. Treatment facilities at Muthu Mandapam, near the new bus terminus, and Sarkar Thoppu, near Katpadi, provide at least 60.5 million litres of daily capacity. The new Katpadi facility can handle 50 million litres a day.

A 650-metre pipe bridge along the Palar river is designed to carry sewage from 32 wards, mainly in Old Town, to the Katpadi plant. Its height of 20 feet above the riverbed is intended to protect it from monsoon inundation.

The corporation expects separate sewer connections to reduce wastewater entering stormwater drains, leaving more space for rainwater to flow towards the Palar. Resident S. Padma said connections would also improve local hygiene. Officials put the average household connection cost at ₹7,000 and said deposits would be added to property tax and collected in instalments.