Rain puts the brakes on city

Heavy rains, lack of coordination between the city’s planning and civic agencies and hardly any attention paid to local drainage resulted in suffering for citizens, thanks to widespread water-logging and traffic woes on Saturday.

Heavy rains, lack of coordination between the city’s planning and civic agencies and hardly any attention paid to local drainage resulted in suffering for citizens, thanks to widespread water-logging and traffic woes on Saturday.

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Lashing the city since early Saturday morning, rains caused water-logging in all low-lying area in the city and suburbs. Locals blamed both the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) for this.

Major complaints, however, came from areas where work was ongoing on the Metro rail project, in the Versova-Ghatkopar corridor, wherein at least 2 feet of water had collected.

An agitated James John, a local AGNI activist, said, “I will be filing a police complaint against BMC and MMRDA. Such negligence can cost citizens their lives.”

K-East ward officer V Shankarwar blamed the MMRDA. “The MMRDA has broken our storm water drains due to which the flow of floodwater is inconsistent. We have been asking them to rectify it for a year now, but they still haven’t bothered. If they don’t repair it soon, we will rectify it ourselves and send them the bill.”

“The MMRDA has followed all instructions given to it by the BMC. It is wrong to say the roads flooded because of ongoing work", said Dilip Kawathkar, spokesperson, MMRDA.

Across the city, more than 80 complaints of water-logging were received while more than 45 trees had collapsed by the evening.

Complaints came from Hindmata, Dadar, Parel, Lalbaug, Nana Chowk, Matunga, Bandra, Milan subway, Andheri subway and highway, Sakinaka, Marol market, Jogeshwari, Malad, Goregaon, Kandivli, Borivli, Kurla, LBS Road, Ghatkopar and Vikhroli. BMC commissioned 11 pumps in the island city, 10 in the western suburbs and 7 pumps in the eastern suburbs to clear out flood water. Flight movement in and out of the city was normal.