The fact that over the past couple of weeks all the five major parties of the city have sparred over the state of drain-cleaning — or lack of it — is not making it any easier for the railway officials either.
Two things about this monsoon are spooking city railway officials — the prediction that it will be a robust monsoon and secondly the fact it is the last monsoon before the BMC elections slated for early 2017. The latter, officials on condition of anonymity agreed, means every single day where rains play spoilsport will turn into a political free-for-all aimed at garnering brownie points for the elections.
The fact that over the past couple of weeks all the five major parties of the city have sparred over the state of drain-cleaning — or lack of it — is not making it any easier for the railway officials either. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, in a recent meeting with railway officials, asked the latter to ensure that the suburban network does not get stalled however heavy the rains this monsoon.
"The railways is the lifeline of this city. If it stops, the city stops. The point is that nothing stands out as an example of monsoon inefficiency in this city as much as stalled trains. This puts pressure on us, because the moment something like this happens, the political blame game is not far behind and there is a real danger of us becoming the fall guys," said a top railway official.
What is worrying the railways is that natural and geographical causes that magnify monsoonal miseries in the city are often forgotten in this political slugfest. "A point close to the Town Hall at Apollo Bunder is the place from where the height of the land above sea level is calculated for railway tracks across the city. This spot is called the Town Hall Datum. At 24.5m, the THD — as it is called in railway lingo — demands that tracks be above that level to ensure they don't get flooded. When there is a high tide, like say 4.25m, the requirement for tracks to ensure they don't flood becomes 28.75m. If the height of the station is below this, then when heavy rains and high tides coincide, water, instead of flowing out into the sea, gets stalled in the culverts and overflows on to the tracks," explained an official.
Another official said, "Almost all the drains that run beneath the railway tracks have a capacity to discharge about 40-50mm of rainfall per hour. If the rains are above 50mm per hour, flooding is almost a certainty. In short, it is like a wash basin which sees more water flowing from the tap than what the sink can take."
The clean-up game
80 diesel pumps installed by WR
39 diesel pumps installed by CR/BMC
43 culverts cleaned by WR
58 culverts cleaned by CR
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