The Salt Lake civic body has started a drive to clean the sewerage and drainage lines across Salt Lake. The moves comes after all three sectors of the township have been getting swamped even after moderate rain.
An official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation said debris, leaves, branches and construction materials dumped on roads had choked the rainwater drainage channels and gully pits, leading to flooding.
Krishna Chakraborty, chairperson of the board of administrators of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said they had started to remove debris and sludge from the drainage network across the township. "We have started the drive to clear the drains across Salt Lake. We have deployed teams to clear all the sewerage and drainage network. The work has begun and we are doing it in phases,” said Chakraborty.
She added the civic personnel had first desilted the manholes and gully pits in the water-logging-prone areas.
An official of the corporation’s sewerage and drainage department said they were focussing on areas from where maximum water-logging had been reported. “We have cleared Karunamoyee intersection and City Centre in the first phase. These two places were getting swamped even during light rain,” said the official.
Residents of all three sectors of Salt Lake said they had not seen any civic worker clean the catch pits or manholes in the last two or three months. Engineers of the corporation said that removing the sludge that accumulated in the sump of catch pits and manholes was one of the most important tasks of the civic body before the monsoon. “Unfortunately this was not done,” said the engineer.
Another official acquainted with the design of Salt Lake’s underground drainage network said the branches dumped by the kerbside after trees were uprooted by Cyclone Amphan had contributed to accumulation of sludge in catch pits. “The foliage of the trees blocked the catch pits in several places. In certain areas, some of the foliage even slipped through the lids of catch pits and went inside the sump, blocking a part of it,” he said.
The catch pits — bigger ones are called gully pits — have lids that can be seen along the kerbs of a road. Under the lid, there is a sump or a container that is connected to a channel linking it with the main drainage line under that road.
The rain water from the sump flows into the main drainage line through this channel. The mouth of the channel is located on the upper half of the sump. This is done so that dust and debris flowing into the sump from the road settles down and only the water flows through the channel.
“If foliage settles in the sump, it could partially block the mouth of the channel. This, in turn, will hamper the flow and the water from the road above will not be drained out fast,” said the engineer.
Apart from branches, construction materials, dumped on the road have also led to choking of the drains.
Did your block suffer from water-logging this monsoon? Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abp.in