Only 108 km of storm-water drain work completed

City’s lack of preparedness in coping with rain in the spotlight once more

The recent spate of pre-monsoon showers has highlighted the city’s lack of preparedness once again. Residents across several neighbourhoods saw storm-water drains overflowing. The BBMP will have to race against time if it has complete fencing and construction of walls alongside storm-water drains.

In April 2017, the civic body had started work on remodelling 146 km of SWD at a cost of ₹800 crore, but to date, work has been completed on only 108 km. In total, including work undertaken before April 2017, 389 km of SWDs in the city have been fenced. But the BBMP has a long way to go as Bengaluru has a network of 842 km storm-water drains.

Civic officials, however, say work had not stopped. “It has slowed down as most of the officials are deputed for election duty. Finding workers in this season is also difficult. Hence it will carry on at a slow pace until the elections are over,” a senior BBMP official said.

The BBMP will have to race against time if it wants to meet deadlines. “Some of the works were taken up with a deadline of one year and others with a time period of two years. Hence, we have not overshot the deadline. We will complete it in the coming days,” the official said.

Remodelling the rest of the drains will be taken up as and when funds are released, and for this, the BBMP will have to wait for a new government to take charge. In February this year, the High Court of Karnataka had asked the BBMP to submit a status report with regard to remodelling, dredging and maintenance of SWDs, and directed it to speed up the work.

Urban experts and scientists, however, point out that until measures are taken to reduce the quantum of water flowing into SWDs the problem will not be resolved. “This is not a new problem. Almost every year the BBMP takes up some work in bits and pieces or abandons something. They will not complete the works of the entire stretch in one season,” said A.R. Shiv Kumar, senior scientist at the Karnataka State Council of Science and Technology (KSCST) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

A good way to reduce the burden on storm-water drains, he pointed out, was effective implementation of rain water harvesting at home and in public spaces.