PANAJI
A serious glitch in Panaji’s underground sewerage system has left engineers and officials scrambling to contain repeated sewage overflows across the capital, sparking fears of a potential public health crisis.
Over the past three weeks, at least a dozen locations have reported sewage spilling overground into the open, forcing the Public Works Department (PWD) to deploy night-soil tankers to pump out waste as a stopgap measure.
The problem comes barely a year after Panaji received a second sewerage line under the Smart City project, which was expected to ease the burden on the old existing network.
A senior engineer who pleaded anonymity admitted that the issue prima facie appears to be related to inadequate gradients in the new sewerage system at several points, which are preventing smooth flow.
"Compounding the problem is the fact that the newly built second line has not yet been connected to the old line at several of the designated intersections, leaving the system incomplete and vulnerable."
The PWD leadership has expressed concern that the overflow, if left unchecked, could potentially contaminate the city’s drinking water supply. Officials recalled that Panaji faced a similar crisis two decades ago when contamination led to a jaundice outbreak that claimed several lives.
The concern is heightened by recent incidents in the Madhya Pradesh city of Indore and Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, where contamination of drinking water supplies has had deadly consequences. In Indore at the fag-end of last year, several deaths were reported after sewage seeped into the potable water network, while Gandhinagar too witnessed a similar public health emergency with hundreds hospitalised with typhoid.
The recent examples from Indore and Gandhinagar have added urgency to the situation in Panaji, with officials warning that even a minor lapse could trigger a serious outbreak. “We are worried that if sewage mixes with potable water, the consequences could be severe,” one senior PWD official said.
Engineers, meanwhile, are currently working to identify the precise fault and are consulting technical experts to rectify it. In the interim, night-soil tanker operations will continue to prevent sewage from spilling onto public roads and in residential areas.
For now, officials are treating the situation as an emergency, with the immediate priority being containment. But the larger challenge of integrating Panaji’s two parallel sewerage systems — the old existing line and the new one built under the Smart City project — remains unresolved.
