Two years after constructing stormwater drainage channel across the city,the Vadodara Municipal Corporation has now realised that it is dangerous. It was only last month the VMC decided to submit a detailed project report to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission to construct the concrete lids to the existing 50-km-long network of stormwater drainage,it has decided to place iron fencing across the city spending lakhs. Interestingly,the same idea was mooted five years ago but it was turned down in the standing committee meeting. Sources said as part of the project,the VMC has constructed about 60-km-long network of stormwater channels,which are one to four metre of depth and 2.5 metre in width. Councillor from Ward 22 Chandrakant Shrivastav alleged that the stormwater lines would be responsible for many accidents. During the last three monsoons,the commuters faced problems due to manholes and open channels. In several areas,the drainage lines got choked and stray cattle fell into it,he said. Nowhere in the world,the stormwater channels are kept open. When they started work in 2007,I had raised objections. These channels are not only responsible for a large number of accidents but they also cause depletion of groundwater level. But nobody responded to my warnings. Today,the VMC is again wasting money to repair them. Executive Engineer (stormwater drainage,bridges) P M Patel said at least Rs 40 lakh would be spent on putting fences and placing caution signs around the channel in the city. Wherever there are chances of fatal accidents,we would fix the fencing. In other less problematic areas,we will simply place the signboards alerting commuters.
