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Pune floods: District guardian minister suggests short-term measures
Pune’s flood line will be breached if 60,000 cusecs of water from the Khadakwasla dam is released, but despite discharges so far being never more than 40,000 cusecs in this monsoon, low-lying areas in the city faced a flood-like situation, with water entering homes and housing societies
Pune District Guardian Minister Chandrakant Patil on Tuesday took a review of the flood situation in Pune district, with short-term measures the dominant plan of action.
All the district’s top bosses, including rehabilitation minister Bala Bhegade; mayors of both Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad; divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar; municipal commissioners of Pune, Saurabh Rao and Pimpri-Chinchwad Shravan Hardikar respectively; and district collector Naval Kishor Ram were present at the meeting.
The municipal commissioners, briefing the minister, said that water released by the irrigation department has been of a capacity that was below the flood-line benchmark.
Pune’s flood line will be breached if 60,000 cusecs of water from the Khadakwasla dam is released, but despite discharges so far being never more than 40,000 cusecs in this monsoon, low-lying areas in the city faced a flood-like situation, with water entering homes and housing societies. The same thing has happened in Pimpri-Chinchwad.
No mention of river encroachment was made at the meeting, where HT, too, was present.
On Monday, activists from various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) wrote a letter to top government officials demanding action be taken to prevent river encroachment and save Pune city from such floods.
Patil instructed administrative officers to ensure that the rank and file of the bureaucracy remained alert for flood situations as all dams in the district were almost full.
“Once the water discharge is reduced less, the public works department should do an audit of bridges. Even the health department should provide health facilities to citizens. The revenue department should do audits of losses and submit proposals to the government for getting help,” Patil said, addressing those present.
District Collector Naval Kishor Ram said, “Pune district has had 917.48 mm of rain so far. Excluding Baramati, Indapur, Daund and Purandar, all talukas in Pune district have had excess rain.
The administration has relocated 13,336 citizens from Pune and Pimpri- Chinchwad city.
Divisional commissioner Mhaisekar said that 50,000 people had been evacuated from Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Pune, following the floods.
NDRF teams were deployed in Kolhapur and Sangli districts besides the deployment of territorial army teams.
