MC YET TO START DRAIN CLEANING DRIVE
The cash-strapped municipal corporation in Jalandhar seems unprepared for the monsoons as the cleaning of sewer and main drains has yet to begin.
Sewer pipelines choked with plastic and waste led to flooding in most of the roads and low-lying areas in the city last year. The Congress-ruled MC House, say sources, does not have a plan to tackle waterlogging despite being included in the Centre’s smart city list in September 2016.As no revenues have been generated in the last few months because of the Covid-19 lockdown, the MC deferred plans to buy new machines or install new pipelines to manage storm water drainage. Only drains in the city will be cleaned as of now, but work on that too will begin once contractors manage to get labourers, which is difficult as most of them have left for their home states after the corona outbreak, says a senior MC officer.
The MC has managed to cover only 8% area with storm water drainage, while sewage pipes don’t have the capacity to handle the heavy flow of water.
MC commissioner Karnesh Sharma says there are enough cleaning machines and there are plans to hire more for a cleaning drive of the drains and pipelines ahead of the monsoon.