KMC keeps pumps ready at Behala, Tolly, Jadavpur

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s drainage department has decided to keep portable pumps ready to give citizens relief from inundation during monsoon. The arrangement will need to be made especially in the city’s low-lying areas and in neighbourhoods where a drainage upgrade project is underway.

This was decided at a pre-monsoon meeting held in Behala on Friday.The meeting, attended by MLAs representing Behala, Tollygunge, Jadavpur and Metiabruz, and senior KMC officials, took note of the drainage upgrade work in Behala’s Shakuntala Park and the Anwar Shah Road connector. “We have reasons to feel worried for residents of both Shakuntala Park in Behala, where a drainage upgrade work under KEIIP is underway, and for residents staying around the Anwar Shah Road connector, where the construction of a drainage pumping station has temporarily choked portions of an outfall canal.

We will need to keep portable pumps ready to flush out storm water,” said a KMC official..The blockage of the canal is also going to hit residents of large parts of Jadavpur and Jodhpur Park hard. “We will need to keep all heavy-duty pumps at Ballygunge and Jodhpur Park drainage pumping stations ready to combat severe waterlogging in areas like Ballygunge, Jodhpur Park, Lake Gardens, among other areas, in the event of a downpour,” said a KMC official.

The KMC brass has asked the civic body’s borough officials to take a proactive role in the coming rainy season. “After dissolution of the civic board, we have been asked to activate the borough civic officials to take note of the citizens’ grievances and take action without delay. During the rainy season, the KMC borough offices will need to play an active role, and coordinated action is needed to offer relief to the citizens who stay in waterlogging-prone areas,” said a KMC drainage department official.