At King8217;s Circle, rain reigns

The plight of school children and office goers wading through brackish water and a surchargedmix of sewage and rain water is pathetic. God knows how many rats must have drowned in this water and thank God that there has been no breakout of an epidemic.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC has miserably failed in its basic duty of preventing such situations. The state government is talking about a Disaster Management Plan in case of calamities. When the BMC cannot handle a flood situation, how will it cope with a major emergency? The officials of the BMC8217;s Storm Water Department usual refrain of King8217;s Circle being a saucer-like area at a low level, choke in the SWD and the high tide in the sea does not hold water. They never tire of repeating such statements to the media. The BMC approach is one of insensitivity and on a situation to situation basis without any short or long term solutions.

The deluge last monsoon on June 27 caused a flood at King8217;s Circle which took 90 hours to recede. BMC was at its wits end and tried funny solutions like pressing into service two fire brigade suctionpumps to pump out water. In vain. The problem was located when BMC divers entered the huge 8quot; x 4quot; concrete box drain in the CGS colony. The drain was broken open to recover about five truckloads of muck, rubble, leather and plastic rubbish. The recovery does not speak well of the lack of civic sense among citizens slum dwellers in particular. But that is only a miniscule portion of the problem. The BMC over a period of time has allowed a Frankensteinian monster to grow, namely the Choke8217; with very little efforts made to contain read clean them. In my opinion, the SWDs have reduced in size due to chokes over a period of time and, coupled with the increase in rain intensity, are incapable of draining the rain water. Further, BMC8217;s sewage lines are draining sewage to capacity and cannot help in draining rain water. Hence both sewage and rain water gets mixed up to aggravate the situation and render it unhygenic to walk.

The media hype and public outcry forced the BMC to announce a proposal to lay a 1,800mm diameter SWD pipe from near the Shanmukhananda Hall area to CGS colony to the marine outfall in October last year. The work as of date still remains a pipe dream. The downpour on the night of June 16 this year led to severe flooding in King8217;s Circle, with a traffic jam and diversion of traffic going on till 1 pm on June 17. BMC Deputy Municipal Commissioner Engineering N B Achrekar in a media statement made it clear that BMC has no funds alloted this year for augmentation of drains in the area. Point well taken, Sir. Now that you have admitted defeat, why not try a short term cost effective solution which will save lost manhours, traffic jams, pollution and disease.

The administration could install a heavy duty motor pump under the King8217;s Circle railway bridge and remove the rain water to an outlet near Aurora Cinema. This same exercise was carried out during a flood five years ago. Secondly, a pipeline can be laid parallel to the railway track from King8217;s Circle to Mahim marine outfall to pump outwater from the flood spot.

I had suggested these temporary measures to Municipal Commissioner K Nalinakshan when he visited King8217;s Circle on June 4 to take stock of the situation created by the floods on June 2. In the long term, the entire storm water system in the area needs to be redone. Will the BMC allocate funds for such operations after all the lessons it has learnt is the moot point. The state government also needs to give the BRIMSTOWAD Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drains project to change the entire storm water drainage system in the city pegged at Rs 1,300 crore at today8217;s cost top priority.

The other aspect of the flood includes total mismanagement by the traffic police which allows Light Motor Vehicles LMV like cars and tempos into the waters. The LMVs stall due to water entering the exhaust pipe. Matunga Traffic police ought to divert or stop LMVs at the Dadar TT and Sion Circle ends from entering the flood zone. This will facilitate smooth movement of BEST buses and lorries. Street urchinshave a field day helping to push out stalled cars from the flood water for a price, extorting money from harried car owners. They also pilfer goods from slow moving vehicles in the absence of any policemen from the nearby Sion Police station being around to check.

When I contacted BMC8217;s Central Control Room at CST on the night of June 16 to check the flood situation at King8217;s Circle, the Control Room pretended ignorance. The SWD department8217;s Control Room at Dadar confirmed that I was third person to phone in. The local Control Room at the F/North ward office decided not to take any calls, the telephone remained unanswered. Not even a single soul from the BMC turned up on the 16th night at the flood spot despite the fact that a chowky of the ward8217;s SWD existed at Shastry Gully, a stone8217;s throw from the flood spot. It seems that the Control Rooms were not for chronic trouble spots like King8217;s Circle.

The vector vaccum drainage cleaning machine which was deployed on the evening of June 17 for clearing thechoked drain manholes could not even loosen up the muck, but BMC employees manning the machine went about their job as a matter of routine.

This area has the distinction of overflowing sewage even in the absence of rains. On any given day between 8 am and 10.30 am the heavy sewage cover made of cast iron is literally lifted several inches above the ground by the sheer force of sewage. The spot lies at the intersection of the B A Road and the road which leads to Shanmukhananda. The whole area including the periphery roads discharge sewage on to the road, forcing pedestrians to run for cover.

The much touted scheme of former mayor Nandu Satam to install electronic billboards at strategic spots in the city to announce flood spots and traffic jams never took off. BMC should tie up with the television media to make announcements about flood spots, to alert citizens to keep off trouble spots and take alternative routes to work.

The time has come to make local corporators, MLAs and MPs accountable and pressfor a permanent solution to this chronic flood problem which throws life out of gear without a warning. Collective action is required to press for long term solutions. Citizens should write to the print media, build pressure on elected representatives, make this problem an election issue and get political parties to include this problem in their poll promises and ensure that they fulfill it when they come to power.

Unless we citizens wake up from our complacent attitude, demand for our rights to live a trouble-free life, the powers that be will stay in their stupor. Finding solutions to this problem is not difficult, all it needs is a positive mindset and a will to get things done. It is time to caution BMC: Beware, Municipal Corporation.

R Sridhar is a consumer activist and can be contacted on e-mail mahafeatvsnl.com