Despite the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) efforts over the past two years to mitigate waterlogging in the city, 24 spots will remain to prone to waterlogging when the monsoon arrives this year. The vulnerable areas include Hindmata in Dadar (East); Mahalaxmi, Parel, Lalbaug in the island city; and locations around Mithi river in the western suburbs, according to the BMC.
Additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal, who is in-charge of the storm water drains (SWD) department, said, “While work on some of these 24 spots has already been taken up, it will not be completed before monsoon 2020. In some cases, the target period for completion of the work is over 12 months. In other cases, work is pending due to the ongoing Metro construction and cannot be taken up until Metro work is complete.”
Almost half of the 24 are localised flooding spots where waterlogging takes place due to a local and temporary reason, such as very heavy rainfall over a short duration combined with high tide, or ongoing construction work. Since they are not chronic waterlogging spots, they do not face the threat of submerging every monsoon.
After the monsoon of 2018, BMC shortlisted 273 waterlogging spots in the city and changed its method to deal with waterlogging spots. The then municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta directed the SWD department to inspect every waterlogged area to develop specific solutions to the problems of each of them.
{{/usCountry}}After the monsoon of 2018, BMC shortlisted 273 waterlogging spots in the city and changed its method to deal with waterlogging spots. The then municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta directed the SWD department to inspect every waterlogged area to develop specific solutions to the problems of each of them.
{{/usCountry}}This resulted in a detailed plan to deal with all 273 waterlogging spots and over the past two years, the BMC has tackled 204 of them.
Last week, in its 2020 budget, the BMC announced the work at 69 waterlogging spots is yet to be completed.
However, the civic body will be able to complete the remaining repairs in 45 of these spots before monsoon 2020. The remaining spots will be taken up for repair afterwards.