Fallen trees, collapsed or choked storm-water drains and flooding in low-lying neighbourhoods – two days of heavy pre-monsoon showers have exposed how unprepared Bengaluru is for the rainy season.
The monsoon, which is becoming increasingly capricious with every passing year, is expected to hit Karnataka in the second week of June. And while the mayor has been making all the right noises about deployment of quick-response teams, the civic body is only now waking up to the rains.
The storm-water-drain (SWD) network, which has been largely ignored, is Bengaluru’s weakness. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike called for tenders to de-silt SWDs only this week.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Of the 224 spots identified as weak links in the 800-odd-km SWD network, desilting and strengthening of retention wall works is under way in 39 spots, with work at 71 spots completed last year,” said Siddegowda, chief engineer, SWD, BBMP.
The civic body finalised short-term tenders worth Rs. 32 crore for desilting of the remaining 114 weak points on Friday. Work is expected to begin on Monday.
But with the meteorological department predicting heavy rain for the next two days because of the influence of Cyclone Roanu, there are fears of havoc over the weekend. Nearly, 40 cars parked in the basement of an apartment complex in J.P. Nagar were submerged when a retention wall of an SWD collapsed on Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Mayor B.N. Manjunath Reddy said tenders should have been called in March-April, but the process was delayed as the civic body was caught up in the budget-related exercise. “We will now ensure that the work is speeded up,” he assured.
The State government has created a Twitter handle @mmcblr to address monsoon-related problems of Bengalureans. People have already started using the handle to alert agencies, like the BBMP, BDA, BWSSB, Bescom and traffic police, which are part of the Bengaluru Monsoon Monitoring Cell.