Mumbai : Civic body to inspect 150 railway culverts

To stave off chaos on the impending high tide days this month from June 23 to 28, the civic body has decided to inspect flooding spots that fall under the jurisdiction of railways.

To stave off chaos on the impending high tide days this month from June 23 to 28, the civic body has decided to inspect flooding spots that fall under the jurisdiction of railways.

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There are 150 culverts in the railway premises that are desilted by the railway authorities before every monsoon for which the civic body bears the costs. But despite paying the railways Rs2.5 crore this year for desilting the drains, railway tracks continued to be flooded and suburban trains were disrupted on all days that received heavy rain in the past two weeks.

The directions were issued by municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte, who also heads the Greater Mumbai Disaster Management Authority.

Kunte held a monsoon review meeting on Wednesday evening to discuss the problems faced by civic officials due to the outpour on Sunday.

The meeting was also attended by railway officials.

“We will reexamine the flooding spots in railway premises and study the drainage system to identify problem areas,” Kunte said.

On Sunday, services running on Central and Harbour railway routes were suspended for as long as four hours leaving lakhs of commuters stranded.

Areas that faced major flooding in the past ten days and disrupted suburban trains on the Central Railway route i nclude Masjid, Sandhurst Road, Currey Road among others till Sion.

Civic officials, however, said the flooding on railway tracks was primarily because of the inadequate desilting work carried out by the railways.