Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation never desilted storm water drainage lines!

While the civic body blames citizens for choking manholes and catch-pits, causing waterlogging during monsoon, the real reason lies elsewhere. Believe it or not, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has just not desilted the stormwater line, meant to carry rainwater for years.

Again, out of the total 250 km of drainage lines in the city, only 5 km has been desilted.

The city roads always get waterlogged during monsoon for which dewatering pumps are used and manholes forced open by citizens.

Though the civic body has spent crores of rupees on laying 750 km of stormwater lines on 1,300 km of road length, they have not been desilted even once since the time they were laid, making it useless for absorbing rainwater and keeping roads free of floods.

“The city has 250 km of drainage line laid and 750 km of stormwater line. Only 5 km of the total network has been desilted in the last two years,” said deputy municipal commissioner IK Patel. He even added that the stormwater drainage line has also not been desilted ever.

So what is the point of purchasing super-sucker machines for cleaning drainage lines when only a small patch has been cleaned?

“With the current technology available, we cannot carry out desilting work for long stretches. Since drainage lines need to be kept operational whole day due to the continuous flow of liquid waste inside, it is difficult to carry out desilting long stretches at one ago. However, for the past two years, we have been including desilting of drainage lines under our project work,” said Patel.

Desilting the drainage or stormwater line means removing mud deposits, pebbles and other waste gushing into the line along with rainwater. If not cleaned, the mud deposits pile up inside the line reducing the capacity of the stormwater line.

With silt in the line, its capacity to absorb water reduces.

Due to the failure of cleaning stormwater lines, it leads to a vicious circle as roads become waterlogged, resulting in creating potholes.

More surprising is the fact that the AMC began to desilt drainage lines for the past two years and till now has succeeded in completed just 5 km of the drainage network.