Machines for pruning trees should be kept ready and contact numbers of those who operate generators and pumps should be updated and made readily available, Kolkata Police instructed all traffic guards across the city.

Amid the possibility of a low-pressure area forming over the southwest Bay of Bengal and later concentrating into a depression, senior officers at the police headquarters in Lalbazar have instructed the traffic guards to be prepared for heavy rain.

In a recent message to the officers in charge of all the 25 traffic guards, senior officers said that all preparations should be done to tackle heavy downpours that is likely to result in waterlogging.

The message says that officers should list areas prone to waterlogging under their jurisdictions and connect with their counterparts in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) drainage department.

“Officers have been asked to interact with both the wings of the KMC’s drainage department, including the one that is engaged in clearing the sewage and the other that is responsible for pumping out rainwater from inundated areas,” said a senior police officer overseeing traffic management in the city.

Officers in charge of traffic guards in the city’s north and central regions have been asked to get officials from the drainage department to start removing underground sewage from parts of Rabindra Sarani, Central Avenue, Beleghata Main Road, APC Road, Strand Road and Jatindra Mohan Avenue so that water drains out faster after a heavy spell of rain.

The contact numbers of those who operate pumps in some of these areas should be updated and kept ready.

The message from Lalbazar said that the officers in charge should inform members of the KMC’s mobile teams, tasked with opening the lids of manholes in inundated areas, about their responsibilities

“There is a stretch on the Prince Anwar Shah Connector that gets inundated after every smart shower. Peak-hour traffic will be hit if this water isn’t drained out fast. It can be avoided if the manhole lids are opened in time,” the officer said.

Besides liaisoning with the KMC officials, the message from Lalbazar has asked the traffic guards to keep a team of officers, trained in the basics of disaster management, ready to join duty when
required.

A pre-monsoon storm in the city earlier this month saw at least 120 trees uprooted. Hydraulic ladders were brought in to chop off branches and the civic body had to deploy 14 teams to clear the branches.

“Electric saws, tree pruning machines, and diesel generator sets should be kept ready,” the officer said. “In some areas, officers should make arrangements for heavy-duty cranes, JCBs and payloaders and keep them on standby in case a building collapses following heavy rains.”