AGARTALA, December 18 (TIWN): The ongoing construction work of cover drains are creating problems to the people of the city and the ongoing construction work also creating traffic jams in the city roads.

Meanwhile, speaking on the developments of construction of drains and drainage facilities of city Agartala, the Mayor informed that AMC has been allotted Rs. 200 crore under 13th Finance Commission grant and utilizing the same all the 35 wards and 6 new Development Committees (DC) within the jurisdiction of AMC will have cover drains. “At present we have 18 cover drains and more are likely to come in near future”, he said. The additional drains, though, are named feeder drains where main cover drains will pour its water and wastes.

Apart from the central grant, another separate project (fully funded by the state government), for making cover drains, isin the pipeline and in the course of its implementation, number of shops will be removed from the street sides. “In the initial phase, from Orient Chowmahani to Rajib Bhawan we will lay cover drains and the entire area will have double storied buildings”, he informed. The shopkeepers, now operating at west side of Children Park, will be brought to the first floor of the said facility. In addition, the entire area situated between East Agartala PoliceStation (East PS) to Mahanam Angan Ashram will also be provided with cover drain facility.

But the construction of these cover drains resulted in the havoc in major areas of the Agartala city. Residents of the city are facing a serious water logging problems for the last few years. As all the wastes of the streets are pull down on the streets and water logging creates. The situation gets worse during rainy season as they had to wade through at least knee­ deep water. A spell of hours heavy rains had cause chaos in the city exposing civic bodies, lack of preparedness to address the problem of water logging. While DWS had blamed AMC for flooding of streets, the civic body had held DWS responsible for the same.