BHUBANESWAR: Yet another heavy rain on Friday left several areas of the Capital City waterlogged. The residents of low-lying areas had a harrowing time with clogged drains and poor road designs choking flow of water. People in at least a dozen localities in the City had to wade through ankle-deep water.
The stretch between Iskcon Temple and Jaydev Vihar Square was submerged as storm water from the National Highway drained into the residential areas.
A senior engineer of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation said, the area in front of Iskcon temple gets flooded because of a faulty culvert which gets choked within two hours of continuous rainfall.
The BMC control room was busy all through the day with distress calls from denizens. They complained of water logging, power cuts and traffic congestion. Worst affected areas were Bairagi Nagar in Jharpada, Old Town and Gouri Nagar, said sources.
Traffic jam was reported under Acharya Vihar and Jaydev Vihar flyovers. Power supply too was snapped after a tree got uprooted near Basista Nagar near Lingaraj Temple and fell on the supply lines. Engineering wing of BMC sought help of the Fire Services department to restore normalcy.
“Concreting and bitumen-layering of roads here is a regular process. There is four-inches of black-topping, two inches of compaction which raises the height of the road by one feet in six years. The undulating terrain, unplanned drainage along the road, leads to water-logging,” an engineer of Housing and Urban Development Department said.
Sources said, BMC officials on Friday have written to the National Highways Authority of India to draw an action plan for addressing the issue of waterlogging on NH 16. “Iskcon Temple, Rasulgarh, Pahala and Hanspal have been identified as vulnerable points. These places need an alternative and ideal drainage system,” the engineer said.