The New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) is planning to dig a channel to drain out water from the township into the Kestopur canal.
New Town’s main drainage channels now are the Bagjola canal and its feeders.
Many pockets of New Town remained under water a week after the city was lashed with heavy rain, from September 18 to 21, as the Bagjola canal and the feeders overflowed.
This new channel will be connected to the Kestopur canal, which flows alongside VIP Road, and the Link Canal, which runs across Action Area III behind Sukhobrishti Housing Complex and Elita Garden Vista.
“We have carried out a survey and found that it is possible to link the Kestopur canal with the Link Canal. The new canal will have sluice gates so the water flow through it can be regulated,” said the official.
The canal is likely to be 4.5km-long.
The New Town authorities are also likely to create another channel that will run parallel to the Sector V link road opposite Godrej Waterside and drain water out into wetlands.
“We have a network of drains there and will create more underground channels to drain rainwater from New Town into the wetlands,” said the official.
Debashis Sen, the chairman of NKDA, which provides civic services to the township, said they would hold a meeting with senior officials from the state irrigation department to finalise the plans to dig more canals.
“We will have a detailed discussion on this. We will also stress on raising the banks of the Bagjola canal and erecting fences to prevent dumping of garbage into the water,” said Sen.
More than 2,000kg of plastic waste were scooped out from the Bagjola canal by hydraulic earthmovers that
had been deployed as an emergency measure after large stretches of the township got flooded recently.