Taking lessons from Tuesday’s deluge, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has taken advance preparations and decided to take several steps to ensure the waterlogging situation improves quickly if heavy rain occurs again in the state capital during Durga Puja.
As the Met Department has forecast light to moderate rain till Saturday (September 27) with the possibility of thunderstorms over the weekend, KMC officials have chalked out a strategy to prevent waterlogging in the city, as lakhs of people will throng Durga Puja mandaps across the city from Thursday.
Officials of the KMC’s Sewage Department have clearly stated that if there is heavy rain again during the festival, the situation will be managed by planning in advance. Meanwhile, the Mayor Member in Council (Sewage), Tarak Singh, has informed Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim about his preparations in detail.
It has been decided that cleaning of major drains and canals in the city will be carried out for smooth draining out of rainwater from the city to the river Hooghly.
Installation of mobile pumps in areas prone to waterlogging will be done, and a 24-hour technical team and control room will be opened for emergencies.
There will be joint coordination with power companies and police for smooth management of the entire process. Separate surveillance in areas adjacent to puja mandaps will be carried out to ease the waterlogging situation at the earliest.
Tarak Singh said: “KMC has a system which is ready all year round. In any disastrous situation, we go down to normalise the situation on a war footing. But when there is excessive rain, the situation gets out of hand. This time our focus will be on the common people and ensure they do not face any inconvenience during the Puja days.”
According to him, as a first step, the work of cleaning all the major drains and canals of the city is going on in full swing. “Special teams have already been formed in various boroughs, who are checking the drainage system every day. The main objective is to ensure that water does not stagnate due to the accumulation of garbage,” he said. According to KMC officials, this advance cleaning will reduce the risk of waterlogging to a great extent.
Meanwhile, mobile pumps are already being installed in areas where water has accumulated in the past. “If water stagnates for hours due to continuous rain, then such pumps will be used to quickly drain the water. Along with this, a special technical team has been formed, which will be working 24 hours. If any danger arises anywhere, immediate action will be taken,” said Singh.
A separate control room will be opened, and a special helpline will be operational to prevent deaths due to electrocution. In addition, necessary steps will be taken in areas where there is a risk of accidents due to waterlogging or power lines.
Meanwhile, Durga Puja organisers have been instructed to raise the electric wires higher to prevent such incidents. In addition, they have been asked to make arrangements to drain water around the puja mandap, and the KMC will cooperate, if necessary.
Singh further said that there will be separate surveillance teams in each borough of the KMC. “They will regularly monitor the situation and report. Additional staff and equipment have been kept ready to take immediate action from the control room,” he added.
A month’s worth of rain in just five hours on Tuesday, combined with a high tide in the Hooghly during the heaviest rainfall period, resulted in widespread waterlogging across the city. About 10 people were electrocuted in West Bengal, including 8 in Kolkata. Train services, metro services were disrupted, while traffic in Kolkata was completely paralysed as almost every road was waterlogged.
The situation has improved on Wednesday morning, but it will take some time to completely clear the city of waterlogging.
The Met Office recorded 252mm of rain in five hours, with 185mm coming down between 2.30 a.m. and 5.30 a.m.. According to KMC data, Garia was the wettest with 332mm, followed by Jodhpur Park at 285mm, Ballygunge at 264mm, Ultadanga at 207mm, and Maniktala at 169mm.
