BENGALURU: With the monsoon season more than half way through, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is only now planning to resume the drive to remove encroachments from storm water drains (SWDs) that was stopped a year ago. But experts feel it is already too late.
In BBMP limits, there are 633 SWDs which run a length of 842 km. Of this, 142 km are primary and 426 km are secondary drains. The actual holding capacity of the city’s drain system is 80 mm of rainfall. But due to encroachments and poor maintenance, the capacity has been reduced to to 35-40 mm rainfall.
“This means that if it rains continuously for half an hour, it is vulnerable to flooding. Last year, Bengaluru witnessed the worst flooding. This monsoon, fortunately, the city did not witness much rains,” an official said.
BBMP engineers too feel it is already too late for this monsoon season. “Ideally, it should have been done in summer. But there were more showers in Bengaluru during summer. Now, we do not know how far we can cover it,’’ an engineer said.
Noted urbanist V Ravichandar sai they should have done it much earlier. “But better late than never. The encroachment removal drive is a long-term process. A deadline of one or two monsoons cannot be set. They need to find a remedy to ensure free flowing water, which can prevent flooding. It is good that the BBMP is taking up the works,’’ he said.
In July 2016, BBMP officials had given a list of 1,953 SWD encroachments to the then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Of these, they had cleared 1,255 encroachments by 2017. However, since last year, the encroachment removal drive was not taken up as there were no surveyors. “We had written a letter to the Joint Director of Land Records (JDLR) to depute surveyors, but there were delays on their side. A few months back they finally deputed ten surveyors,’’ an official source said.
HT Bettegowda, BBMP Chief Engineer (SWD), told The New Indian Express that there were 728 encroachments. “We have got surveyors who surveyed 434 encroachments out of the remaining 728. We have requested the JDLR to give the survey report along with the markings. They are expected to give it to us by this week. Once we get those markings, we will take up the demolition drive,’’ he said.
FLOODING POINTS
Bettegowda said there were 366 vulnerable points for flooding, and by removing encroachments, BBMP has reduced it to 339. “By the end of December 2018, 390 km of drain work will be completed. The remaining work will be taken as and when we get funds,’’ he added.