Mayor Firhad Hakim has asked civic engineers to start desilting drains that merge with sewer lines under arterial roads and ensure that the project is over by the monsoon this year.
"The planning should start now if the work has to end by the monsoon," Hakim said on Saturday.
The mayor's instruction to engineers was in response to a call during the weekly phone-in programme Talk to Mayor. The caller had complained that the drains near his home are filled with silt.
Hakim asked engineers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to address the complaint and also draw up plans to desilt drains under roads in neighbourhoods.
"We have taken up desilting work under many arterial roads but that will not yield any result unless the drains that branch off from thoroughfares are also desilted," he said.
"Start drawing up plans to desilt those drains so the clean-up work is over in time (before the onset of the monsoon)," Hakim said.
Sources in the KMC said two departments in the civic body are responsible for desilting underground sewer lines. The drainage department desilts sewer lines that are 600mm or more in diameter and the civil engineering department cleans up the narrower conduits.
Desilting is necessary at regular intervals because the dust and other waste often enter underground sewer lines and clog them. If the sewer lines remain blocked, it will delay the draining out of water and lead to flooding during the monsoon.
"There are suction machines to desilt drains. The work is undertaken around the year. Manholes and gully pits are also cleaned," said a KMC official.
The KMC has taken up projects to desilt sewer lines under a stretch of EM Bypass, near the Beleghata Building More, and on a stretch of Anwar Shah Road, along with neighbouring roads.
A network of clogged sewer lines in Jadavpur and Dhakuria, which is often cited as one of the reasons for waterlogging in many neighbourhoods in those areas, will be desilted, too.
"These are arterial road. The sewer lines under the arterial roads are usually of large diameter because sewage in conduits from neighbourhoods is drained into these lines," said an official.
"If the sewer lines under smaller roads as well lanes and bylanes remain silted, then these neighbourhoods will get flooded during the monsoon," said the official.