The Capital City has not seen much development as far as roads and drainage systems are concerned in the last five years.
While the city has been witnessing rapid infrastructure growth every year, roads and drainage networks in a majority of locations have not been attended to commensurately. With the elections to Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) fast approaching, people have started questioning efficiency of the outgoing council.
The instances of negligence on the part of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation members are galore. Lack of timely maintenance and repair works have damaged a long stretch of road near Jharpada Jail. Similarly, a patch of road in between Master Canteen and Rajmahal in Ashok Nagar, has been lying neglected for a long time now. Roads at several other places are replete with potholes.
The drainage system in areas like Jharpada, Old Town and Saheed Nagar has been a problem since long. Daya West Canal in Jharpada is one of the biggest natural drains of the city. Currently, it is full of weeds and wild vegetation which blocks the natural drainage for the entire area.
During the last one year, no progress has been made in clearing the drainage channel even as locals staged agitations several times.
Every monsoon, many areas in the Capital City face artificial flooding due to choked drains. The problem is grimmer in Old Town area which does not have proper drainage channels. Repeated demands by locals for covered drains and proper drainage connectivity has fallen on deaf ears.
And lack of inter-departmental coordination has been a major excuse for a majority of the corporators of the outgoing council.
Since the main drains fall under the jurisdiction of the drainage division, Water Resources Department, corporators claimed they could not do much in cleaning them. Not only has the infrastructure development been slow, the ongoing beautification projects like wall painting and plantation projects were stalled due to lack of funding from the private players.