Kalachowkie residents in for a troubled monsoon

The work on the caved in road and the storm water drain repair is not yet complete. The collapse of a storm water drain under the road at Shravan Yashwant Chowk led a portion of the road to cave in on February 22.

Already living in a low lying area, Kalachowkie residents might be in for more trouble from flooding during the monsoon.

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The work on the caved in road and the storm water drain repair is not yet complete. The collapse of a storm water drain under the road at Shravan Yashwant Chowk led a portion of the road to cave in on February 22.

The repair work that started on March 2 was supposed to be completed by now. The Road department will resurface the road on a temporary basis but the road will get concretised later.

A.V. Ralkar, BMC chief engineer (Road department) said: “We will complete the work before the monsoon and will concretise it, as it was previously, after the monsoon.”

“The repair work on the damaged storm water drain is about 80 to 85 per cent complete. But we still have to get it done as whole after the monsoon ,” said Chandrakant Watve, chief engineer BMC Storm Water Drain department.

Local corporator Ramakant Rahate said that although the BMC will repair the drain, the area will still get flooded because the drain which goes ahead is not in a proper condition.

Rahate said: “The road work will not get completed before monsoon and locals have to face problems during the rains.” After the road collapse in Kalachowkie in February, the BMC gave the Rs 6-crore contract on an emergency basis.

While investigating the reason behind the road collapse, the officials found several leaks in the arch-shaped stormwater drain, which is around 125 years old. Situated about 15 ft below the road’s surface, the brick construction laid in the pre-independence era gave way, causing a lot of water to gush out finally leading to the road to collapse.

In the past two years, there have been seven such incidents — twice on Jacob Circle, twice on Pedder Road, once at Shivaji Park, once at Girgaum and once on Veer Nariman Road.