There is a very friendly senior citizen couple that lives on my street. They both live alone as their children are married and live elsewhere.
Every other month I would see them dealing with a deluge of filthy sewage water flowing down their driveway onto the road. The helplessness and pain I witnessed on their faces made me reach out to them. This misery started some 5-6 years ago. Their house shares the service lane with M block GK2 market and are hence experiencing this torture.
Apparently, every building has a sewage collection pit in its rear lane. Sewage from houses and the market restaurants goes into these pits. When pipelines get choked then there is major trouble. Since this senior couple’s house is at a lower level than the restaurants, the sewage backflows out into their house building and driveway.
The main culprits are the restaurants that dump their kitchen waste, plastic bags, and even things like whole coconuts, grime, and grease in huge quantities, down the drains. As per the rule book, they are supposed to install grease traps and wastewater treatment units at their establishment which is blatantly flouted. In the West and Middle East, regular inspections are made by authorities to check on the status of grease traps. If not found up to the mark, they are penalized heavily. No such checks by the city authorities are made here or if they are, then they are highly compromised. During the Covid period, they faced no issues since all restaurants were shut.
Even though DJB has promptly taken action with their jetting machines whenever complaints are lodged, the solution has been temporary. The latest effort made by this couple has been to hire a licensed plumber to install a non-return valve on their premises to prevent backflow. This has been marginally helpful.
The sewage pipes that exist in the colony are the same ones that were installed in the 1960s. Ever since, there have been multiple increases in population, residences, and restaurants in the colony. This exponential rise was not envisaged and planned for back then. It’s high time the authorities replace these old pipes with larger-diameter ones. Also, regular inspections and challans for non-compliance could make the restaurants get their act together.
As I type this article, their driveway has sewage filth running over it.
From a concerned neighbor and resident of GK2
