First time in 40 years, Gandhi Market yet to be inundated this monsoon

What helped Gandhi Market stay afloat was a mini pumping station with a capacity to pump out 2.33 lakh litre of flood water per minute.
Constructed at Rs 19 core, the mini pumping station includes a pit, a stormwater drain line that carries the flood water from the market and the main arterial road up to the Bharat Nagar railway nullah near King Circle, which further carries it to the sea. Floodgates constructed at the nullah mouth this year ensured that the high tide water did not enter the drain during heavy rain.

Gandhi Market is located on Babasaheb Ambedkar Road, an arterial road connecting eastern suburbs to the island city, which sees heavy traffic.

Kanchan Setpal, who has been running Satyam Ladies Fabric for 28 years, recounts how all shopkeepers would put up all products in the loft by May to avoid damage by rainwater. “This year, the flood water did not enter the shops. The pumping station is a success. Some years ago, I had to open my shop standing in knee-deep water.”

Every monsoon, high-capacity dewatering pumps are installed at Gandhi Market to drain out excess rainwater. Earlier, water used to recede in three-four hours, but on June 9, last year, it took almost eight hours for the water to recede.

The BMC said that the mini pumping station will be managed by the contractor for the next four years.

P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner, said, the project is not yet over. “We are yet to observe the situation on the ground, as we plan to further improvise on the system. We aimed to see that traffic in the area does not come to a stop or has to be diverted on heavy rain days and that has been achieved.”

However, King Circle resident activist Nikhil Desai said that the Chitale Committee – set up in 2005 by the state government after that year’s deluge to bring relief to Mumbai — had already suggested these measures but the BMC did nothing about it. “While 50 per cent of the problems have been solved, I have seen that on heavy rain days, water does accumulate. It can only be drained out once the rain stops.”

The committee had suggested that a pumping station at Mahul should be built, among others, but its construction is yet to begin. The land where pumping station has been planned in Mahul is salt pan land owned by the Union government. The land acquisition process has been in progress for over three years.

Planned as part of BMC’s BRIMSTOWAD project, the pumping station in Mahul will likely deal with waterlogging at Matunga, Kurla, Sion, Wadala and parts of Dadar.