A drive to remove plastic waste from gully pits and rainwater drainage channels will be undertaken by multiple teams from the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA).
It was decided at a meeting of senior NKDA officials and engineers on Wednesday that a full clean-up drive of the gully pits and stormwater drainage channels would be launched across all three action areas of New Town.
Several parts of New Town, including stretches of the Major Arterial Road, got flooded when the city was lashed by rain last week.
A senior NKDA official said they carried out a survey to find out the causes behind the waterlogging.
According to the official, the survey revealed that in several areas discarded plastic items had choked channels as well as gully pits, because of which the rain water could not drain out quickly enough.
A large number of the stalls on pavements dump food waste and discarded items around the gully pits despite the fact that the NKDA’s garbage collection teams visit the stalls and temporary markets daily.
“Despite our best efforts, a number of shopkeepers and residents continue to dump waste around gully pits and throw plastic bags on roads. These eventually wind up in the rainwater drainage channels and choke them up,” said the official.
According to the official, the clean-up drive will be conducted using high-powered suction pumps.
“These pumps will ensure that the waste doesn’t choke the gully pits and channels. The waste collected will then be carried to a landfill site,” said the official.
NKDA chairman Debasis Sen said the clean-up drive was being undertaken in a bid to ensure that there is minimal waterlogging this year.
“If we can keep the channels and gully pits clean and free from plastic waste, only then the rainwater will drain out fast. We have an adequate number of pumping stations and we have even run checks at the sites to ensure that everything is working properly,” Sen said.
He also appealed to the residents to shift from plastic bags to environment-friendly bags. “If we take our own bags to the market, we don’t need to take plastic bags from shops. Plastic items don’t decompose easily and are extremely harmful for the environment,” Sen said.