Engineers of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation inspected all drainage pumping stations in Salt Lake on Monday to find out whether the pumps and pipelines were working to their optimal level.
The exercise was carried out to assess the monsoon preparedness of the pumping stations before the city is lashed with heavy rain, a senior official of the civic body said.
There are six drainage pumping stations in Salt Lake. All the pump sets at the stations were operated for around an hour to check whether they were functioning to their capacity, the official said.
According to the official, nearly all pumping stations have the capacity to drain out water at the rate of around 200 cubic ft per second.
On Monday, most of the pump sets had functioned well, the official said.
A senior official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation’s sewerage and drainage department said they decided to carry out the check as a preventive measure so that Salt Lake does not get waterlogged after showers.
Last year, several blocks of the township suffered severe waterlogging during the monsoon.
The civic body has also requisitioned at least 20 portable pump sets that can be moved on trucks and can be placed in places from where waterlogging will be reported.
“We are also keeping pump sets on standby at the drainage pumping stations to ensure that if faults appear in some, they can be replaced as soon as possible,” the official said.
A meeting has been scheduled among officials of the state irrigation department and representatives of the civic body to discuss the monsoon preparedness, the official said.
“The irrigation department had started dredging the Kestopur and Bagjola canals, where most water from Salt Lake flows into. We will again hold a review meeting where we will give them a report on our pumping stations so that they have an idea of our drainage systems and take steps accordingly.”
A new pumping station near City Centre II that will drain out water from the roads near Chinar Park, Haldiram’s crossing, Teghoria and Arjunpur is also nearly complete.
Large parts of these areas get waterlogged regularly after every spell of heavy rain.