AHMEDABAD: Just two inches of rain in two hours wrecked the much-publicized monsoon action plan of the ‘smart city’ on Tuesday.
Not only were many roads waterlogged, but cave-ins were also reported from at least five spots in three days.
This has drew the wrath of Hitesh Barot, chairman of the standing committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).
Complaints of waterlogging resulted in AMC office-bearers getting irked and he visited several areas and took photographs.
Another office-bearer said water logging in underpasses is also a major issue and even two inches of rain cause underpasses to be closed.
“We were told that special work had been taken up at Mithakali underpass to address waterlogging but this year too there was waterlogging.” A senior officer who asked not to be named said, “This year the work was not taken up as there was shortage of labourers due to Covid.
However, in almost all areas, the water receded within a couple of hours.” The BRTS track near the Blind People’s Association campus has seen major cave-ins before and there was one in the same area again on Tuesday.
“This reflects poor work done by AMC officials when it comes to cave-ins,” said the senior AMC officer.
The city on Tuesday got an average 33mm of rain in the 24 hours ending 4pm and the city control room received 43 complaints waterlogging of which six were from West Zone and the remaining were from the eastern part of the city.
The western part did not receive heavy rain on Tuesday, A BJP office-bearer, who is on an AMC committee, who asked not to be named, said that according to the guidelines, catch pits have to be cleaned much before the monsoon begins and stormwater drains have to be cleaned.
However, it appears that the entire exercise is only done on paper as all waterlogging complaints are from areas which have been facing the issue for several years now.
Hitesh Barot, the AMC standing committee chairman said, “We have taken photographs of areas where there was waterlogging and this was in just one or two inches of rains.
We cannot take this lightly and will send the entire AMC team on to the city streets on Wednesday and to ensure that they get to the bottom of the problem.
If we have to have more catch pits, we will ensure this work is done.
Desilting will be taken up from Wednesday.”