BAHAWALPUR: District Coordination Officer (DCO) Imran Sikandar Baloch has come forward to explain why the city`s main Circular Road and Bund Road are inundated with sewage, saying old sewerage lines that laid in 1982 have choked.

According to a handout issued on Tuesday, the DCO said work was in full swing on a project to lay a new sewerage line worth Rs170 million along Circular Road inside the oldcity and its adjacent areas.

He said the new line will benefit people for at least 30 years. He also said the old sewerage line had completed its age and had chocked due to which people faced dif ficulties.

Public Health Engineering Department Executive Engineer Baqir Gardezi said under the project an 80,000-foot sewerage line with pipes of diameter 12 to 15 inches were being laid from Ahmedpuri Gate, Derwari Gate, Circular Road, Farid Gate, Bund Road and other adjacent areas to Lal Bagh disposal works. This line would serve the peo-ple for 30 years.

The Circular Road along medical stores in front of the Bahawal Victoria Hospital and around Farid Gate had been submerged in rainwater for over a month causing great hardships to patients, their attendants, motorists and pedestrians. The situation became serious when the city received rains and sewage mixed with rainwater inundated the road.

Even now the patch of road near the hospital and Bobby Plaza was inundated with sewage and causing inconvenience to shoppers.