Early rain may trip BMC

With the monsoon expected to hit the city in the first week of June, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been caught short. Civic officials concede that all the work may not be done by the official deadline of May 31. As the monsoon usually arrives later, the BMC usually gets time till June 7.

Last week, the Indian Meteorological Department announced that the south-west monsoon would hit the Kerala coast by May 24, meaning it will reach Mumbai by June 4. Though municipal commissioner Jairaj Phatak insisted most of the monsoon-related work would be completed by May 31, BMC officials were less optimistic. “If rains arrive early, we will get a week less to work,” said one official, requesting anonymity.

The BMC claims to have cleaned 60 per cent of the major drains till now. It also has to renovate many roads and clear debris. The slow progress has drawn flak from members of the BMC Standing Committee. Colaba Congress corporator Vinod Shekhar said, “Despite spending Rs72 crore on cleaning drains and several crores more on road work, pre-monsoon work is far from satisfactory.”

However, the municipality’s disaster management has hit top gear on another front. Aiming to reduce the response time during incidents of flooding, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has, for the first time, set up an early warning system with the help of weather stations at 30 locations in the city.

“The stations will be networked to the head office. If there is heavy rainfall (more than 40 mm/hr) at any location, the nearest weather station will send out a warning signal or beep, and the corporation will concentrate rescue efforts at the concerned site,” said professor Kapil Gupta, an engineer from IIT who is a consultant with the BMC for the installation and operation of these stations. “This will reduce response time. The readings will be taken at fifteen-minute intervals, instead of every hour like before.”

The municipal corporation has identified 51 spots in the city that see flooding; 25 of these are major flooding spots. According to data from the city’s meteorological department, there will be 21 days in this year’s monsoon when the tidal waves will be above the 4.5-meter mark. “If it rains heavily (more than 40mm/ hr) on these days, the city will witness flooding,” said Gupta.

Blockades due to disposal of silt, garbage and solid waste in drains, lack of adequate water holding ponds, lack of open spaces and inadequate sewer and drain network posed major barriers to water recession during the monsoon, Gupta added. Additional municipal commissioner Srikant Singh said, “The BMC is widening the sewer and drain network. It can now hold 50mm/hr of rainwater (it could earlier hold 25 mm/hr).” Gupta, however, said that even this might not be enough. “Thrice in the last seven year, Mumbai has had more than 120 mm/hr of rain.”

As a long-term solution, the BMC is considering a proposal to create ponds to collect water in low lying areas, a model that is followed in many countries, including the US. Gupta said, “Flood water could be diverted to these ponds; this will decrease flooding by at least 20 per cent.” During the dry season, these spots could be used as recreation parks, he added.

Most civic officials are however sceptical of it being implemented as most of the areas identified for the ponds — Bandra Kurla Complex, Mahalaxmi Race Course and some mill land — are property hot spots.

The state government, which plans to regularise post-1995 slums, could consider Bangkok’s model of constructing new homes on stilts. “Such an arrangement will help rainwater to flow from underneath the homes,” Gupta said.