Civic body may lose Rs 150 cr from the funds allocated to it under JNNURM The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) stands to lose up to Rs 150 crore from the funds allocated to it under JNNURM. This situation has come to pass as the Centre, in a directive to the civic body, has sought to change the parameters and resubmit plan for construction of storm water drains and channelisation of nallahs. If the move to benchmark construction needs based on data of once-in-two-year flood frequency as against the once-in-100-years as was planned earlier gets through, JNNURM fund allocation under this head to most municipal corporations will get scaled down. The union government had said the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) has examined the DPR submitted by PCMC for storm water project estimated at a cost of Rs 402 crore before urging it to submit a revised plan. When contacted, Dr Rajendra Jagdale, Director General, Science and Technology Park (STP), the agency that prepared the original plan said, "The norms laid down by union ministry are old and only suitable where there is open landscape'. Given that the original plan had got an in-principle approval from the union government, Jagdale said the directive to revise the plan would be taken up with the ministry. "We have spoken to the scientists at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and got our report authenticated. If the new statistics recommended by the union ministry are taken into consideration, there will be a reduction in cost of project to the tune of Rs 100-150 crore,' Jagdale said. According to a letter written to the Maharashtra Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), state level nodal agency for JNNURM works, and PCMC, the central UDD has asked for the revision of the detailed project report on the basis of norms of the manual on sewerage and sewage treatment published by the ministry which provides for a maximum flood frequency of once in two years. The PCMC is refusing to budge. "We are trying to convince the union UDD that the existing plan should not be revised as the design of storm water drainage on the basis of flood frequency of once in 100 years would provide a long term solution. The revised plan - flood frequency of once in two years would fall short of tackling the situation if there is excessive flooding,' said PCMC Commissioner Dilip Band. In its remarks on the DPR submitted by PCMC, the union government had remarked that it had a very high size and huge capital cost. "The design parameter as adopted in the DPR will result in a storm water drainage network of very high capacities which will be prohibitively expensive and which may never be optimally used', the union government note said. "It is observed that the DPR for storm water drainage system in PCMC suffers from erroneous and excessive design parameters and cannot be appraised from technical angle in its present form. It needs to be thoroughly modified in accordance with the manual norms,' it added. MMRDA planning department chief Uma Adusumilli said that every corporation has the right to plan its storm water drain project as per their need. Though the union government has asked for a revision, it is the responsibility of the municipal body to convince the union government for funding the project as designed by them, she said.