The Kolkata Municipal Corporation will set up a drainage pumping station in Mukundapur to address the waterlogging problem in the hospital zone in the south-eastern part of the city, a senior engineer of the civic body said on Wednesday.
The area remains inundated for several days every monsoon.
Along with the pumping station, the KMC will lay underground drainage lines in the hospital zone. Civic engineers hope that the two together will reduce waterlogging in the area.
A drainage pumping station drains out water coming into it through underground pipes from a catchment area and discharges it into canals. Drainage pumping stations help drain out the rainwater faster than natural flow as high-powered pumps are used.
The work order has been issued and construction of the pump house will begin after Puja. The deadline for completion of the pump house and the drainage network is April 2023, said the senior engineer.
The drainage network will be built only in the hospital zone under this project but the pump house will have the capacity to drain out water from a larger area.
Once the drainage network expands to other parts of Mukundapur, this pump house will drain out the water from the expanded area as well.
“We have issued the work order and construction will begin after the Puja holidays. The project cost is Rs 120 crore and the deadline is April 2023,” a senior engineer of the KMC said.
“We are expecting that roads around the hospitals in Mukundapur will not get waterlogged after this pump house and the associated drainage network becomes operational.”
The project was planned over two years ago and passed several stages of approval before the work order was issued. It was delayed in the absence of a plot of land where the pump house could be built.
Recently, the state information and cultural affairs department handed over one of its plots to the KMC. The pump house will come up on it.
The Telegraph has reported several times about the plight of residents in the area and patients, their family members and doctors going to the hospitals. They have to wade through ankle-deep to knee-deep water.
The roads surrounding AMRI Hospital’s Mukundapur unit remain waterlogged for days.
A resident of a housing complex opposite the hospital had said that flood water had entered the water reservoir of the complex and entered the lift, forcing them to switch off electricity in the building for a couple of days last month.
The road in front of the Avidipta housing complex and the one leading to the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences also get flooded after a spell of intense rain. The water level becomes such that rickshaws stop moving, making it difficult for patients going to the hospital.
A civic engineer said that large parts of Mukundapur, including the area where the hospitals are, do not have any underground drainage network.
