BHUBANESWAR: Facing backlash over poor drainage desiltation in the city, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has planned to do away with manual cleaning of internal drains to speed up the silt removal process ahead of monsoon this year. An official from the drainage wing said the civic body has sought expressions of interest to rope in an agency capable of facilitating mechanised desiltation within BMC’s jurisdiction.
The city has a total of 1,123 km of internal drains along roads in 67 wards of which around 663 km is managed by BMC and 360 km by the R&B division. Idco manages 65 km of internal drains in industrial estates while the length of internal drains under NHAI is 34.43 km. BMC will clean drains spanning over 360 km falling under the R&B division from this year onwards.
Officials said the present method of desilting the stretch of the drain, which is being done manually or sometimes using a poclain machine, is a challenging task. The RCC slabs covering the drains slow down the desiltation process making it a time-consuming affair.
As each slab is required to be removed for the desilting work, it often leads to damage to the concrete structures, a drainage wing engineer pointed out. Accordingly, BMC has now planned to procure services of agencies having the required expertise, technology and experience to desilt the drains through the suction system. The civic body is looking for agencies that can provide a mechanical suction system capable of clearing the drain up to a length of 50 to 100 feet in one go by removing just one RCC slab, the engineer said.
He said after the selection of the agency, the service will be initially used for internal drains with concrete slabs to check its feasibility. The process, if feasible, will also help clean the clogged drainage stretches that sometimes remain inaccessible leading to waterlogging in localities during monsoon.