If everything goes according to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's (AMC) plans and if municipal commissioner IP Gautam keeps his promise, the New West Zone that includes Vejalpur will soon get a 38.13 sq km stormwater drainage line.
The zone will also get a new, Rs10-crore pumping station to drain rainwater out of Vejalpur, which is one of the most waterlogged areas of the city.
For the New West Zone's proposed stormwater line, the AMC plans to spend around Rs100 crore. On Tuesday, Gautam said that Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (Auda) had laid a pipeline network during the lake interlinking project but had failed to lay parallel stormwater lines to share the burden whenever there was excess rain. He said that this is the main reason why water from Chandlodia rushes down the line towards Makarba Lake while Vejalpur remains flooded because of overflowing drains.
Gautam said that they are studying the problem of waterlogging in the area and have planned to come up with a Rs10-crore pumping station to solve the problem. "In the earlier stormwater drainage plan, we did not include New West Zone as the plan was complete when the new areas merged with the AMC," he said.
The municipal commissioner said that now the civic body intends to revise the proposal of a stormwater line along with the lake interlinking project in the New West Zone and submit it to the JNNURM authorities.
Gautam said the New West Zone' stormwater line project will cover areas including Shahwadi, Juhapura and Vejalpur right up to Motera. However, as of now, Vejalpur is unlikely to get full relief from waterlogging as the existing stormwater line has the capacity to drain out water swiftly only up to 1 inch of rainfall per hour.
Apart from the New West Zone, the AMC also intends to connect the remaining areas of the eastern part of the city with the proposed stormwater line. "We also plan to connect Kharicut canal to the Khari river so that the water gets flushed into the river," Gautam said.
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