CM Vilasrao Deshmukh’s return has had the desired result on civic officials. Following a meeting with the head of the state BMC has decided to hit damage control mode.
Chief Minister’s Vilasrao Deshmukh’s return from the US tour has had the desired result on civic officials. Following a meeting with the head of the state on Thursday, BMC has decided to hit damage control mode.
BMC chief Jairaj Phatak said, “The civic body will prioritise eviction of hutments which block waterways and nullahs. As soon as rain gods bring respite, we will undertake eviction action.” Phatak said.
More than 20,000 hutments have encroached upon the embankments of crucial nullah and river systems. Additional Municipal Commissioner Sreekant Singh said, “Structures will be demolished on priority basis along the Irla, Shastri Nagar, Subhash Nagar nullah systems.”
“About 840 of these structures were protected as they came up before 1995. They will be rehabilitated in homes reserved for project affected people at Mankhurd,” he added.
The rehabilitation plan may however suffer, as many encroachers have demanded rehabilitation in an area close to their present dwelling. Deshmukh also ordered a quicker response mechanism to tackle emergency situations during extreme events. Phatak said, “We are exploring possibilities to better response time.”
One possibility, said Singh, was sounding an early alert to the local ward offices in the eventuality of heavy rainfall. “Using our weather stations (installed at 28 locations in the city), the disaster cell forewarns the local ward offices about possible flooding if it rains heavily (above 15-20 mm every 15 minutes).
We will now work towards forwarding the alert signal,” he said. In another experiment, the civic body has installed screens over the flood gates along the 1,800mm sewerage line between Sion and the Bandra shaft. “We want to examine if the screens can obstruct sewer flow into the shaft for a while,” Singh said.
Following Deshmukh’s concern on monsoon related work at nullahs and culverts running along the Central Railway, Phatak said, “More civic machinery will be diverted to chronic sites along central railway’s network.”
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