Mumbai: As the arrival of monsoon nears and the BMC has hit it's deadline of May 31 to complete the premonsoon storm water drains desilting, the desilting of the Mithi River stands at only 69% as of Sunday. The desilting of the 17 km long Mithi River is most crucial to prevent major flooding in Mumbai during heavy rains. Although, the work is behind the deadline, the BMC is confident that by next week the work will reach 75%, the bare minimum requirement.
"We are concentrating on proper desilting on 20 outfalls of Mithi River, which are crucial to avoid flooding. The round one is completed and second round desilting of these crucial points will begin from June 1. In the next seven days, we will reach 75% of the work," said additional municipal commissioner (projects) Abhijit Bangar.
Bangar added that last year, the desilting of Mithi River was at 70%, and although 100% completion of work is expected, it cannot guarantee if it will not cause waterlogging. Thus, this year concentration is more on qualitative work on crucial points, than quantitative work.
BMC group leader Ganesh Khankar said, "The 69% work completion number citizens see on the dashboard are 'real numbers' and not inflated ones like last year. Thus, although the Mithi River desilting percentage is showing less, the status of work in actual and in the next four to five days there will be satisfactory progress. Learning lessons from last year, this year all dewatering pumps have been made operational from May 15 itself, to prevent water logging."
Meanwhile, the overall desilting of nullas across Mumbai, including major and minor drains is completed 96% as of Sunday, the BMC's live dashboard shows.
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