As the city continues to grapple with the heatwave, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) held a monsoon preparedness meeting on Friday.
There are only about 45 days between now and the usual monsoon arrival date in the city. A coordination meeting between multiple departments to fix gaps could not have been delayed, said KMC officials.
The monsoon usually arrives in the city around June 10.
While the meeting was underway, a representative of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) was asked by many, including the mayor: When will it rain?
The IMD official said there was no forecast of rain at least till April 29.
The meeting discussed the need to conduct joint site visits by the KMC and the irrigation department and the KMC and the Public Works Department (PWD) to resolve some pending issues.
An unfinished drainage network, drainage pumping stations, desiltation of canals and dengue prevention measures came up for discussion.
“The coordination meeting was crucial. We have set up a couple of joint site visits between the KMC and other departments. If the visits and the subsequent action are not initiated before the monsoon, people will suffer,” said a civic official.
Mayor Firhad Hakim, who chaired the meeting, told an additional commissioner of police to see whether Lalbazar could pass on information about waterlogging to the KMC.
“If you get information about waterlogging, please pass it to our control room so we can act faster,” the mayor said.
The irrigation department provided an update on the desilting of the canals.
Hakim also asked the KMC’s drainage department to keep portable pumps at strategic points so that they could be easily moved to any place during an emergency.
“Keep the pumps strategically located,” he told the chief engineer of the KMC’s drainage department.
“The pumps will be kept at three locations, one each in south, central and north Calcutta. This will help us move the pumps to places from where waterlogging is reported,” the chief engineer told the mayor.
The electrical department of the civic body was asked to check lamp posts and ensure that no electrocutions take place.