AMC Clears ₹42.47 Crore Drainage Project for Kathwada, but Capacity Concerns Hang Over Odhav Main Trunk Line

Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has approved a massive ₹42.47 crore drainage network project for the rapidly growing Kathwada and Tablipara pockets in the city's East Zone. However, serious questions have emerged regarding the project's long-term viability, as the new infrastructure will dump sewage directly into the Odhav main trunk line—a pipeline that civic officials previously acknowledged is already running at peak capacity.

The approval addresses a long-pending demand from local residents, developers, elected corporators, and the local MLA in Kathwada, an area merged into AMC limits that has seen a massive boom in residential societies, bungalows, and industrial sheds across Town Planning (TP) Schemes 111, 505, 414, and 415. For years, households and commercial units in Kathwada Gamtal and Tablipara have relied on old soak pits due to the lack of an underground drainage system.

New Network to Connect to 1,800 mm Odhav Trunk Line

Following detailed project surveys conducted through external consultants, the East Zone Engineering Department formulated the ₹42.47 crore scheme. Under the approved engineering plan, sewage collected from Kathwada and Tablipara will be funneled into an existing 1,800 mm diameter main trunk line running near the Odhav Vepari Mahamandal.

While the new network guarantees immediate household and commercial connections on paper, internal discussions between civic engineers and ruling party officials have previously highlighted severe bottlenecks in the existing network:

• Overloaded Odhav Line: The 1,800 mm Odhav main trunk line routinely runs full to capacity, raising doubts over its ability to handle additional sewage inflow.
• Overburdened Sewage Plants: Downstream processing units at Vinzol and Pirana Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) are currently operating well beyond their designed capacities.
• Naroda-Narol Line Constraints: Alternative proposals to divert Kathwada's sewage flow toward the aging Naroda-Narol trunk pipeline were previously deemed technically unfeasible by engineers.

Abandoned Proposal for New Kanbha Sewage Plant

The decision to rely on the overburdened Odhav line marks a departure from earlier strategic plans. Former AMC Water Committee Chairman Dilip Bagariya revealed that civic leaders and senior engineers had previously discussed a dedicated alternative route.

Under that earlier proposal, Kathwada's sewage was to be routed toward Singarva, where land acquisition proceedings had been initiated near Kanbha to construct a brand-new Sewage Treatment Plant. The plan envisioned treating the wastewater locally before discharging it into the Khari River, preventing extra load on the city's central drainage grid.

With the AMC opting instead to tie the ₹42.47 crore project into the existing Odhav system, urban planners and local stakeholders warn that without immediate capacity upgrades at the Pirana and Vinzol STPs, the new network risks causing severe sewage backflow across eastern Ahmedabad once operational.