The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of a drainage pumping station at Hrishikesh Park in Thanthania, off Amherst Street, on Wednesday evening.

The drainage pumping station, which will come up at an estimated cost of Rs 67.60 crore, is expected to reduce to a large extent the decades-old waterlogging problem that plagues large areas of north and central Calcutta.

Wider drainage lines will be laid under 1.7km of roads, replacing old lines that are narrower, a KMC official said on Wednesday.

Some of the roads that are notorious for waterlogging and will benefit from the project include Amherst Street, Sukeas Street, Surya Sen Street and Bidhan Sarani.

Sukeas Street remains under knee-to-waist-deep water for days every monsoon.

Waterlogging plagues Amherst Street, parts of College Street and the area around the Thanthania Kali temple.

Thanthania is a low-lying area compared with the roads surrounding it, which is why water flows into the pocket from adjacent places. At times the water remains stagnant for days.

“This pumping station will reduce the decades-old waterlogging problem of Thanthania and surrounding areas. I have heard that even Subhas Chandra Bose had visited the area with engineers of the corporation to find a solution to the problem of waterlogging when he was the mayor of Calcutta,” mayor Firhad Hakim said.

Bose was elected mayor of Calcutta in August 1930.

A senior KMC official said the playground at Hrishikesh Park will remain unaffected as the drainage pumping station will come up in a section of the park that has a landscaped garden.

"It will take around 18 months to build the drainage pumping station," the official said.

The project is part of a larger plan of the KMC to tackle waterlogging in north and central Calcutta.

The civic body has also planned a Rs 62-crore project to increase the capacity of the Palmer’s Bridge drainage pumping station, which drains out rainwater from vast swathes of north and central Calcutta.