The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has on Tuesday invited tenders worth Rs471.11 crores for repair, maintenance and desilting work of various nullahs and storm water drains of Mumbai to prevent flood and water logging situations during monsoon in Mumbai.
In 2006 under the BrihanMumbai Stormwater Drain (Brimstowad) project, the BMC had set up big pumping stations at Haji Ali, Juhu, Reay Road, Worli, Lovegrove, Cleveland areas of Mumbai. The stations pump out thousands of litres of water into the sea in a few minutes. The BMC had also installed 480 pumps to suck out storm water at various places of Mumbai. Water logging poses a serious problem as in monsoon during high tide storms water doesn’t recede fast.
According to BMC officers, the capacity of Mumbai’s British era storm water drainage lines to carry water is only upto 50 mm rainfall, beyond that water starts accumulating on the roads. It has often been noticed that when there is 1000mm rainfall in two or three days, it becomes difficult for BMC to make Mumbai flood-free.
Slums go underwater due to overflowing nullhas and citizens have to bear financial losses because of flooding. The BMC has, therefore, decided to start cleaning and repairing storm water drain work in Mumbai.
Chief Engineer of Storm Water Drain department Vibhas Achrekar said, “This year, there was delay in tender process which resulted in delay in desilting work. To avoid such a situation next year, we have invited tenders well in advance. Now we can start desilting work next February and March.”
“We have undertaken cleaning of nullahs in eastern, western suburbs and the city along with smaller nullahs and railway culverts. We will improve the capacity of the storm water drains ,” Achrekar added.
The BMC is always being targeted for waterlogging during the rainy season. This year, BMC had started desilting work in the month of April. Thereafter, BJP corporators and MLA Asish Shelar had visited and inspected various nullahs and alleged that the disiliting work done was shoddy.
BMC Commissioner Dr. Iqbal Singh Chahal then directed contractors to conduct desilting work in two shifts. He had also directed his officers to pay regular visits and install CCTV cameras in desiliting sites. To avoid such inconvenience and delay, the BMC has decided to start desilting work from February itself.
