BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah blamed unexpected, heavy rainfall for floods in many parts of Bengaluru on Monday.
Though he announced initially that he would visit rain-affected areas in the evening and hear out grievances of the people, he called off the plan, saying it would inconvenience the already affected people. He justified it by saying he would not be able to see much of the rain damage in the evening. He instead headed to the Integrated Command and Control Centre at the BBMP head office to review the rain damage.
From there, he held a virtual meeting with BBMP zonal officials and got updates on the prevailing situation. He said he will devote the entire Wednesday to inspect the city and review its problems after the Sadhana Samavesha at Hospete on Tuesday.
He told media persons, “We received an unexpected rainfall of 104 mm in the last 24 hours. Many areas in Bengaluru were affected.” He stressed that he had been instructing BBMP officials about encroachments, accumulation of silt and shallow depth of stormwater drains. BBMP officials have been instructed to take up remodelling and desilting of clogged drains, he added.
He said, “Bengaluru has 859.90 km of SWDs and we have built retaining walls for 491 km of the drains. Construction is underway for 195 km. We have taken a loan from the World Bank to remodel 173 km of SWDs. The work is in progress.”
He was confident that after all the drains are remodelled, flooding can be prevented in the city. A total of 210 low-lying areas have been identified and categorised as ‘sensitive’ and ‘hyper-sensitive’ to flooding, he added.
“Work in 166 of these areas has been completed, while it is going on in 44 others. Once these 44 sensitive areas are fixed, most problems will be solved,” he said. Work is in progress in 24 of these areas, he added.
Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister DK Shivakumar, who accompanied the CM, said traffic police had identified 132 sensitive traffic zones and of them, 81 had been fixed by April, while issues with the remaining 41 would be addressed.
He said Bengaluru is of great concern to him and said it is the law of nature to rain, but they are taking measures to improve the city.