A project to improve the drainage system in Mukundapur and neighbouring areas, which promises to end the chronic problem of waterlogging in the area, will not be complete before the arrival of the monsoon, civic officials said.
It means residents may still have to wade through water and patients may still have to travel through waterlogged streets to any of the multiple hospitals in the area.
The project to lay drainage pipelines across a large part of Ward 109 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), which includes Mukundapur, and construct a drainage pumping station is likely to be complete by September, a civic official said.
“Drainage lines have been laid. The construction of the drainage pumping station is still on. It will be ready only by September,” the KMC official said.
The project has been undertaken as part of the Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Program.
Frequent waterlogging has been a problem in Mukundapur, Nayabad and New Garia for years. Streets remain flooded for several days after every prolonged spell of showers. Water enters the parking space of apartment blocks and even ground-floor rooms.
A resident of Nayabad said that following an intense spell of rain in 2021, the garage of their apartment block remained flooded for more than two days. “My car, which was in the garage, got damaged. I was forced to skip office for two days as the water level on the street was very high,” he said.
Another resident said the area around the New Garia housing cooperative is among the waterlogging-prone zones. “The place often remains under knee-deep or sheen-deep water during the monsoon,” he said.
The Telegraph has reported that the road in front of AMRI Hospitals Mukundapur gets waterlogged after every intense spell of rain. The water also floods the basement of the hospital and has to be pumped out.
Civic officials said many pockets in this neighbourhood did not have underground drainage network. In some places the underground network was inadequate.
“We have laid 6.7km of underground sewer lines. We have replaced old pipelines of inadequate capacity with new ones,” said the official.
Work is underway to build the drainage pumping station. “A sub-station that will have the electro-mechanical tools to operate the drainage pumping station is being built,” said an official.
The start of the construction of the drainage pumping station was delayed byabout six months because it is being built after filling a portion of a pond, said the KMC official.
The KMC had to dig a pond of equal size close to where the station is being built before it could start the construction. “Rules mandated that we could start building the pumping station only after digging a pond as compensation for filling up a portion of another pond,” he said.
Ananya Banerjee, councillor of Ward 109, said she was aware that the project would not be complete before the arrival of the monsoon. “We have made alternative arrangements. There will be 13 portable pumps in various locations across the ward so that water can be drained out into the canals as fast as possible if there is waterlogging,” she said.
Banerjee said she was optimistic that waterlogging will not be severe because the canals that drain out water from this ward has been dredged well this time.
“The canals have been dredged properly. We have also cleaned the underground sewer lines and the gully pits. This will increase the capacity of canals and underground drains and reduce waterlogging,” she said.