Mumbai Rains: BMC disaster management cell has a very busy day, receives steady stream of calls, VIPs

The cell is situated on the ground floor of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) building. After Fadnavis, many politicians like Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, Mumbai (city) Guardian Minister Vinod Tawde, Member of Parliament Arvind Sawant, Maharashtra Transport Minister Diwakar Raote (Shiv Sena), Thackeray scion Aditya and BJP’s Mumbai chief Ashish Shelar turned up at the cell.

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A senior civic official from the disaster management department said, “This is the first time that we have had such a huge number of VIPs visiting the department. The department is already short staffed with 20 posts lying vacant. People on the night-shift continued to work till Friday evening.”

Officials also said that their work was disrupted as time was wasted in briefing the ministers who turned up. The officials also held meetings with the ministers.

Being the first responders after any disaster along with the fire brigade control room, the cell not only receives calls, but also alerts control rooms in the 24 ward offices in the city. It also makes a detailed inventory of all the events in a day and addresses the press.

Sanjay Deshmukh, additional municipal commissioner, in-charge of the disaster management department said, “Apart from our regular staff, we also have officials from the Traffic, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and the Transport (BEST) departments, monitoring the situation.”

Another official said, “I was part of the night shift and left at 12.30 am yesterday. I had to report to work at 5 am in the morning. There is no option, we have to work under stress in such situations.”

tanushreevenkatraman@expressindia.com