Deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya, accompanied by the RMC assistant medical officer and other civic body officials, visited a number of city localities from 11am to 3pm on Monday to take stock of problems plaguing residents, including open drains.

The visit came against the backdrop of the death of a four-year-old girl, Falak — who fell into an open drain at Nala Road in Hindpiri last week — prompting some to remark, sotto voce, that the tragedy had woken the Ranchi Muncipal Corporation (RMC) out of its slumber.

“RMC officials got firsthand experience of the waterlogging on the 45-foot stretch of the road connecting Vidyapati Nagar with Gandhi Nagar. They discussed strategy to solve the problem without delay,” said Raman Kumar, a Vidyapati Nagar resident. “They heard people sharing the problems they face in sending their children to school due to waterlogging.”

Anwar Ali, a resident of Karbala Chowk, said the RMC officials inspected an open drain that goes towards the Government Polytechnic.

“The officials had come to see how the drain could be covered to stop repetition of a Nala Road-type accident in the locality. They spoke to residents and took their opinion on the ways to cover it properly without delay,” Ali said.

Vishnu Agrawal, who runs a garment shop at Upper Bazar, said the officials visited narrow lanes.

“Civic body officials got firsthand experience of the garbage people dump in the narrow bylanes of Upper Bazar,” Agrawal said.

RMC assistant medical officer Dr Kiran Kumari said the four-hour visit was to take stock of the ground reality.

“At Vidyapati Nagar, I directed the engineering cell to visit the spot and prepare a plan to drain out water from doorsteps and find a permanent solution to ensure that schoolchildren should not suffer. At Karbala Chowk, we plan to build a guard wall along the drain to prevent people from going close to it. At Upper Bazar we decided to outsource cleanliness work in the bylanes,” Kumari said.

She said the officials also visited Sarjana Chowk.

“We want to make a stretch between Sarjana Chowk to Kashmir Vastralaya a no-vending zone like the stretch between Sarjana Chowk and Kutchery. For this we visited the stretch and planned where we can shift the vendors and what we can do for them to ensure that they happily accept our plan.”

Deputy mayor Vijayvargia said other localities they visited included SN Ganguly Road, Laljir Heerji Road, Vishnu Lane, and Kali Mandir Lane.

“During the visit we warned vendors and asked them not to cross the white line along the roads,” Vijayvargia said.

“We want to make the city better, and thus we visited different spots from where work can be started for improvement.”