PESHAWAR, June 23: The City Municipal Development Department (CMDD) plans to initiate a sewage treatment project for the waste generated by the Hayatabad township, sources told Dawn.

The sewage would be diverted to the treatment plant constructed on the Warsak Road in the outskirts of Peshawar.

The project, likely to be executed in the first quarter of the next financial year, will cost Rs40.4 million.

According to the feasibility report, about 4km-long pipeline will be laid from Hayatabad sewage treatment plant to Tahkal Payan which will be connected with the main sewerage line. The pipeline will be laid beneath the service road along the main Jamrud Road.

The project has been necessitated after a committee of experts, constituted by the provincial Environment Department declared the Hayatabad sewage treatment plant defective, an official of the provincial Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) informed Dawn.

The official said that the district government had signed an agreement with Nespak to prepare the design and lay the sewerage line.

The defunct Peshawar Development Authority had constructed the Hayatabad sewage treatment plant at phase-3 at a high cost in early 1980s. The plant exhausted its capacity due to growing population in the posh Hayatabad township.

Thousands of gallons of sewage from the residential areas and the nearby industrial estate found its way into a nearby water course that falls into the River Kabul.

Environmentalists consider Hayatabad township, Jamrud Industrial Estate and the newly-constructed Labour Colony major culprits in polluting the River Kabul which destabilises the river’s ecosystem.

A member of the committee said that the construction of the sewerage line would help reduce the level of contamination of the River Kabul while the EPA had directed the owners of 10 industrial units to make arrangements for the treatment of effluents.

The committee has recommended to the CMDD to convert the defective sewage treatment plant site into residential plots .