Heavily silted Churial canal may cause widespread waterlogging in Behala

KOLKATA: Heavily silted Churial canal may cause widespread waterlogging in Behala this monsoon.
The problem will get compounded by large stretches of Diamond Harbour Road left dug up for the ongoing Metro rail construction.
These problems were discussed at a pre-monsoon meeting held at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation headquarters a couple of days ago.
A section of the KMC sewerage and drainage department officials made it clear that the civic body would not be able to prevent inundation of large areas of Behala which include Silpara, Sakherbazar, Shakuntala Park and areas off James Long Sarani.
“Given a heavily damaged sewerage network due to metro rail construction and lack of dredging of Churial canal have made these areas vulnerable. We can at best give some temporary relief by undertaking a special desilting drive along the DH Road,” a KMC sewerage and drainage department official said.
Similarly, some KMC drainage department officials are keeping their fingers crossed for large areas off EM Bypass. Some of these areas had gone under water last monsoon because of a defunct drainage system.
“We are really worried over the situation in some areas off EM Bypass that include Mukundapur, Kalikapur, Madurdaha, New Garia, Kasba, Garfa among other areas. In the event of heavy rains there will be large scale waterlogging in these areas. We will have to combat this waterlogging by draining out the storm water by using submersible pumps,” a KMC sewerage and drainage department official said.
The KMC top brass took up the issue of waterlogging with the metro rail authorities and state irrigation department. A civic official informed that the irrigation department officials who attended the meeting were reminded of a Rs 5 crore corpus fund which were allotted for dredging some highly silted parts of Churial canal which carries storm water from entire Behala. “We have decided to use machines to desilt some of the clogged sewers of Behala for next one month. This apart, we will keep ready submersible pumps for the worst stretches of Behala,” a civic official said.
However, the civic officials had a word of hope for some of city’s worst waterlogging-prone areas in north and central Kolkata. “ Effective desilting programmes undertaken throughout the year has minimized the scope of inundation of most waterlogging-prone areas in north and central Kolkata. Some of these areas where the residents will be spared from a sinking feeling include Amherst Street, Sukia Street, College Street, M.G. Road, Camac Street, Wood Street, Theatre Road among other areas,” said a KMC drainage department official.