A joint effort has been launched to sanitise the city streets and clean the drains to avoid flash floods, which might be a hindrance in the fight against Covid-19.

Government bodies like the water resource department (WRD) and the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) are under pressure to gear up and complete all works to combat flash floods.

“Floods during Covid-19 time will prove to be disastrous as all precautionary guidelines are directly linked with maintaining hygiene and sanitisation. We have given utmost importance to the cleaning and unclogging of drains before the monsoon sets in,” divisional engineer, GMC, Nabajyoti Bordoloi, told The Telegraph.

The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has also completed 90 per cent of cleaning, unclogging and maintenance work.

“Our work got delayed as the labourers left the city but we called them back with special passes to complete the remaining work,” said a senior GMC official.

At present, in each of the divisions of the GMC, around 70-80 workers are engaged in maintenance work. Re-sectioning work of the Bharalu is also under way.

The mechanical division of the water resources department told The Telegraph that they are all set to tow their trolley-mounted mobile water pumps to their respective locations in the city from tomorrow onwards in preparedness against the battle against flash floods, in the coming months, in the city.

“We are gathering our skilled labourers from distant places, arranging special passes and providing transportation. We are unable to purchase some basic essentials for the pumps but we are trying to contact some shops and warehouses,” said an official.

The department has 22 high-capacity water pumps in their six permanent pumping stations and around 14 trolley- mounted mobile water pumps to ease out flash floods here.

“All the pumping machines are ready for operational activities,” said an executive engineer, mechanical division, water resource department. The trolley pumps are deployed in the bylanes of Tarun Nagar, Anil Nagar and Lachit Nagar, which are basically low-lying areas.

The GMC has around 20 major pumps and 10 small ones operating during the monsoon season.

The city, which has borne the brunt of flash floods, has seen a major decrease of such occurrences in the last two to three years owing to leverage of high-capacity water pumps.

“The time taken to pump out the excess water is comparatively less than in previous years. Earlier, the water stayed for a day or two, but now the pumps flush out the water in eight to 10 hours,” said an official.

An official said the lockdown time was a boon as there will be no traffic to deal while tackling floods. The people will also be safe from the contaminated water on roads.

The Indian Meteorology Department, Guwahati, has forecast rain or thundershowers this week.