Bhubaneswar: Even as the southwest Monsoon touched the Andaman Islands, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Tuesday decided to desilt the drains to prevent flood like situation in the Capital city.
The civic body will start the desilting work along the drainage channel No. 7, 9 and 5 Wednesday. The move was taken after opening of re-tendering documents.
Decision on cleaning drainage channels i.e. no. 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 will be taken May 29 when the tender papers will be opened. While the clean-up work has started in channel No. 2 behind Sainik School, BMC’s own workers will do the desilting work in the secondary and tertiary (smaller drains) in the 10 wards where the cleaning work is managed by the civic body.
The civic body will spend Rs 1.5 crore on cleaning the 10 drainage channels across the city, said sources.
Executive Engineer of Drainage Division under BMC Pradip Duria said, “The cleaning of the drainage channels will include cleaning of their basin, lifting of garbage and other waste blocking the channels and desilting activity as these channels take the loads from other smaller drains and carry the water to Gangua nullah.”
Notably, most of the drainage channels have originated from western part of the city and move towards eastern part. They mostly fall in Gangua nullah as it circles around the city and finally joins River Daya after covering a few kilometres from the city.
The cleaning and desilting of the basins of the drainage channels would ensure better flow of rainwater to Gangua and thus ensuring less water-logging threat to the low-lying areas of the city. The clean-up drive will continue till October this year as the rains continue almost till the end of September.
The tender process for desilting of 10 drainage channels started April 15 this year. Contractors are engaged in works which involve more than Rs 3 lakh. But for three projects which involve less than Rs 3 lakh, the Drainage Division will engage persons as no contractor had applied for the projects. Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena has also given a go-ahead to the Drainage Division for the work as no takers were there for the projects.
De-silting and cleaning of major drainage channels have become an imperative for efficient management of the drainage system. For, once the Monsoon sets in, it would become an uphill task to take up the work.
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