BMC sets early deadline for monsoon preparedness; 10% water cut from May 15

The BMC’s move of preponing its deadline comes after an early monsoon onset took place last year, when showers came on May 24, almost paralysing the entire city since the preparations were not underway.

By addressing a press conference on Tuesday (April 28), Bhide said that this year, Mumbai will likely record a relief from usual water-logging woes.

“We (BMC) have held a joint meeting with the railways, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Navy and Railways.

A decision has been taken to keep all the drainage inlets unobstructed and all the government agencies like MMRDA that are carrying out infrastructure works have also been instructed to carry out joint site inspections along with civic officials in all low lying areas in Mumbai,” Bhide said on Tuesday.

She said that this year, there are 496 flooding spots in Mumbai, out of which 403 spots have already been tackled and work in 93 such locations are underway.

A flooding spot is a low-lying area that is very much likely to record a significant period of water logging during a moderate or heavy spell of rainfall and every year, the BMC identifies chronic flooding spots in Mumbai by assessing the previous year’s rainfall pattern, following which remedial measures are implemented.

“Chronic flooding spots like Chunabhatti and Vidyavihar at Mumbai’s eastern suburbs have been tackled following storm water drain (SWD) upgrades,” Bhide said.

Furthermore she said that to tackle these flooding spots across the city, 576 dewatering pumps will be placed in Mumbai by May 5.

She also added that the ongoing road concretisation work will be completed by May 15. At present, out of Mumbai’s 2,050 KM long road network, 350 KM is being concretised right now.

Bhide said of the total number of roads that are under construction and have a progress status of 70 per cent, will be completed by May 15.

Furthermore, the BMC’s data show that BMC has completed 39 per cent of its overall desilting work. Out of which, 45 per cent have been achieved in western suburbs and island city, followed by 28 per cent in eastern suburbs.

Meanwhile, desilting progress at Mithi River stand at 27 per cent. The BMC has set a May 31 target to complete the overall desilting work in Mumbai.

“The pace of desilting is slower at eastern suburbs and in the Mithi River because the work orders for these works were issued later. However, the work is showing good progress and we will be able to meet the May 31 deadline, well in time,” she said.

Furthermore, Bhide said that 174 dilapidated buildings have been identified before monsoon this year, of which 72 have been vacated while the remaining buildings are under litigation.

Water cut to come into effect from May 15

Bhide on Tuesday also announced that a 10 per cent water cut will be coming into effect in Mumbai from May 15 onwards.

Bhide said that the decision has been taken by keeping the El Nino climatic pattern in mind that will result in below normal rainfall in south West Asia.

According to the civic body’s data, the combined capacity of all the seven lakes stands at 14,47,363 million liters and on Monday (April 27), the overall stock stood at 28.79 per cent or 4,16,714 million liters. The BMC supplies 3,850 million liters daily (MLD) to Mumbai against an overall demand of 4,300 MLD, leaving a deficit of 250 MLD.
Bhide said that the current stock will last till July 16.

“The weather bureau has already predicted below normal rainfall for this year and we don’t know how the rainfall pattern will be for this year. However, by implementing a cut, water stock will last till August,” Bhide said.

Furthermore adding that the BMC has requested an additional water stock of 2.5 lakh million liter’s from the state government.

El Niño is a climate phenomenon where sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm. It is part of a larger system called the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which has two main phases, El Niño (warming phase) and La Niña (cooling phase).

El Niño weakens the southwest monsoon winds and leads to below average monsoon in India. Earlier, weak monsoon years like 2015 and 2023 had El Niño influence.