‘The city will be rain-ready by today’

Additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta, who is in-charge of the city’s roads and drains, speaks to Kunal Purohit about the status of work and claims the city will be rain-ready by Friday.

After an audit at 17 spots by an HT’s panel of experts found the BMC’s monsoon-preparedness sorely lacking, additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta, who is in-charge of the city’s roads and drains, speaks to HT about the status of work and claims the city will be rain-ready by Friday.

HT Image

At many spots, the expert panel found that work on cleaning the nullahs had not even begun, despite the rains being just days away.
Although we tell our contractors to clean one nullah at a time, it is surprising that spots were found where work hadn’t even begun. We have observed that despite us cleaning nullahs, people throw garbage and choke nullahs. This should stop. However, the city will be rain-ready by June 7.

Despite the BMC spending crores on desilting major nullahs, the city keeps getting flooded. Many allege that there are not enough checks and balances in place to ensure that contractors don’t cut corners.
That is not true. We supervise the desilting at various levels — be it at the site or at the ground where it is dumped, or even while it is being transported, through vehicles fitted with GPS systems. Any irregularities in the system will be addressed.