Facility: With a sewerage network finally completed residents of Khuruthang town in Punakha are looking forward to living in a cleaner environment.

Since its establishment more than 16 years ago, the town lacked a proper sewer network and was infamously known for its foul smelling environment generated from poorly built septic tanks. The town has also been an eyesore for its design, and lack of proper urban infrastructure and facilities.

After waiting for years, the town is finally seeing some sign of development with the completion of the sewerage network and treatment plant for which work started more than a year ago.

However, as construction of the sewerage network started, residents had to bear with severe dust pollution and deteriorating road conditions in the core town area.

Sangay Wangdi, a resident in Khuruthang said for more than a year they have been suffering as a result of the dust pollution, and that the concerned authorities and contractors had not sprinkled water to prevent the dust conditions. “We are hoping for the completion of the overall work soon,” he said.

Khuruthang’s municipal engineer Aiman Limboo said the sewerage network of Khuruthang town has been completed while the construction of the treatment tank is still underway. The overall sewerage network is scheduled to be completed by February next year and treatment tank in April 2017. Aiman Limboo said that work is on schedule.

“Since the development work is going on the dust is unavoidable but we tried to minimise dust by sprinkling water during the dry season before the road development work started recently,” said Aiman Limboo. However, residents claim that the concerned authorities never sprinkled water.

Aiman Limboo said road development work in the core town area which includes blacktopping has been already awarded to a contractor. So far a base course has been laid. Blacktopping will start within a week and be completed within this month, he said.

Meanwhile, the municipal officials are expecting the entire project to be completed by April next year.

Dawa Gyelmo | Punakha