A drainage pumping station that holds out the promise of draining out rainwater from parts of Behala that gets waterlogged even after brief spells of shower, will be inaugurated on Wednesday.
The construction of the pumping station, along with the laying of nearly 20km of underground drainage lines, started in 2018. The work was disrupted during Covid, said an official involved with the project.
The infrastructure has been created by the Kolkata Environmental Improvement Investment Programme (KEIIP), a project of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The pumping station will drain out water from large swathes of wards 123 and 124 and pour it into the Chorial canal, which will then drain out the water into the Hooghly.
The neighbourhoods that are going to benefit include Eastern Park, Hemchandra Mukherjee Road, Sodepur 1st Lane, Kailash Ghosh Road, Vidyasagar Palli, Netaji Palli, Purbapara and Ramkrishnanagar, said the official.
“The command area of the drainage pumping station includes some places that are prone to waterlogging. These were some of the places that were inundated during rains last month,” said the official.
Rajib Das, the councillor of Ward 124 said several neighbourhoods in the ward that are located along the canal — Purbasan, Ramkrishna Nagar, Purbachal, Narkelbagan, Satyajit Park, Jyotirmoy Nagar — will benefit.
“Many of these places were paddy fields even a few years ago. These areas now getting urbanized but they don’t have the drainage infrastructure to handle the urbanization. We are hoping that the waterlogging woes will end now with the station,” said Das.
A sewage treatment plant (STP) is also under construction.
While the water during monsoon or when it rains will be drained out into the canal directly, during dry months the sewage water will be directed to the plant, whichwill treat the sewage and make it fit for discharge into the canal.
During monsoons, the sewage gets diluted when it is mixed with rainwater and can be drained into the canal directly.
Drainage pumping stations use pumps of high capacity to drain out water faster than usual from roads.
The KEIIP is also building a drainage pumping station for Mukundapur and Nayabad. The Mukundapur area is dotted with hospitals and every monsoon patients and families have to wade through waterlogged streets to reach the hospitals. The construction of the station in Mukundapur is likely to be completed by September, said an official.
The CMC recently inaugurated a drainage pumping station in Nawab Ali Park in Kidderpore area. Officials said the station in Kidderpore was targeted at draining outwater from waterlogging-prone pockets in the neighbourhood.