Bhubaneswar: Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) along with other line departments went into a huddle Monday to chalk out a strategy to fight waterlogging and urban flooding across the state capital.
The brainstorming came in the wake of India Meteorology Department (IMD) predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall in the city over the next 36 to 48 hours or even more.
BMC Commissioner Dr. Krishan Kumar convened the multi-department emergency meeting at the BMC Conference Room in the evening and briefed the senior officials to be vigilant in the next 36 hours and work in tandem with the strategy and the experiences gathered from past waterlogging situations.
The BMC and Odisha Fire Services have pre-positioned nearly 30 water pumps at vulnerable locations across the city, while the remaining 22 are for the developing situation as rains have started across the city after evening hours.
Meanwhile, the city has been divided into 13 sub-zones or sectors. Every sub-zone will be having four to five supporting staff including the Ward Officer, who will be the contact person for that particular ward.
The Commissioner also asked the PWD team to have a response team as many secondary drains along the main roads across the city belong to the department.
The PWD and BMC teams were also asked by the Commissioner to have 15 JCBc as reserve for any emergency call to attend.
The engineers and team members of Water Resources department were asked to work in a team with the Drainage Division of BMC so that there would be coordinated effort to manage the situation. The engineers from CESU will also be in the coordination team to manage any situation in the next 48 hours.
The sanitation workers of three major sanitation agencies i.e. Jagruti, PMR and Ramkey with 1,400, 600 and 700 personnel respectively will be on guard and at least 10 sanitation workers from these agencies would be with the local team to coordinate the situation.
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