Opposition slams civic body over water-logging in city

Opposition corporators on Thursday slammed the BMC for its failure to resolve waterlogging issues in the city even after crores of rupees were spent on pumping stations.

The motion was raised when Chairman of the Standing Committee, Ramesh Korgaonkar, was reading out the point of information brought by the Storm Water and Drain department (SWD) for imposing fines on contractors for delaying the Cleveland pumping station construction.

Opposition corporators raised an objection stating that the administration should come clean on whether fines were imposed on contractors for missing the deadline or for improper designs of pumping stations as most pumping stations failed to prevent water-logging in the city.

Ravi Raja, Leader of Opposition, said, “Mumbaikars are not bothered what fine the corporation imposes on contractors but they want relief from water-logging. After spending Rs. 500 crores on three water pumping stations, namely, Cleveland Worli pumping station, Britannia pumping station and Gazdaar pumping station, the city is still having water-logging problems. Even after increasing the dewatering pumps still Dadar, Hindmata areas continues to suffer.”

Vijay Singal, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of BMC, said, “A showcause notice has been issued to the Chief Engineer of the SWD as to why the Britannia pumping station was not functional and failed to operate. Moreover, the contractors would be fined Rs. 40,000 per hour if the pumps fail to start automatically when the water level reaches 23 millimetres.”

This year BMC has increased the number of dewatering pumps from 260 to 310. While the newly-built pumping station at Gazdaar in Khar have six pumps out of which four are operational and the other two would be tested on June 25 and 26, the high tide days.