Residential Colonies Face The Aftermath Of Continuous Showers Amidst Choked Drainage System; Waterlogging Busts LMC

Kabita duarah
GUWAHATI, Sept 4

SURI, Sept. 2: Enteric fever has broken out in Birbhum

Due to a lax rescue effort by the authorities, land grabbers are filling up the Rupnagar main canal at Pallabi by constructing road and tin-shed houses across the canal.

This unauthorised grabbing of the canal has worried locals as they fear the area would be waterlogged permanently if the canal is blocked in such a way.

The natural canal carries sewages and stormwater of West Shewrapara, Kazipara, Monipur, Mirpur Section 2 and Rupnagar residential areas, Duaripara and Alokdi villages, and discharges them into the river Turag.

In an effort to bring the drainage and consequent waterlogging issues into media focus, The Daily Star Chittagong bureau organised a roundtable titled "Drainage: A Menace for Chittagong' at its conference room on August 14.

Abul Momen, adviser to the editor of The Daily Star in Chittagong, briefed about objectives of the series roundtable on Development of Chittagong. He said The Daily Star Chittagong Office will seek views on different problems and make endeavour to highlight development issues and prospect of Chittagong.

Abul Momen

The chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, on Tuesday directed the authorities concerned to take a comprehensive and integrated plan to remove water logging in different parts of the country including the cities of Dhaka and Chittagong.
He also directed them, at a high-level inter-ministerial meeting at his office, to recover, from the grabbers, the canals in the two cities, keep them clean round the year, construct walk ways on both the banks of the canals and keep them free from grabbing.

The caretaker government yesterday asked for urgently undertaking the long-neglected Eastern Bypass-cum-Flood Control Embankment construction project to protect the eastern part of the city from floods.

A high-level inter-ministerial meeting, presided over by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, gave the directive as the government considered a package programme for solving waterlogging problem and ensuring civic amenities.

Excavation of few canals and removal of already identified blockages in the drainage system can save the port city from waterlogging and inundation, said the speakers at a roundtable yesterday.

The roundtable titled 'Drainage: A Menace for Chittagong' was organised by The Daily Star Chittagong Bureau Office at its conference room in the afternoon.

It was the first of a series of roundtable that The Daily Star Chittagong Office will hold on different development issues of the port city.

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 8

Leader of the house in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Subhash Arya and Standing Committee chairperson Vijender Gupta have said that the MCD has appointed a high power co-ordination committee under the chairmanship of Mayor Arti Mehra to monitor waterlogging on the city's roads.

All departments of the Delhi government and other government agencies are members of the committee.

There is no possibility of respite for around 4 lakh people in Jhigatola area in the city from severe waterlogging soon as the authorities are likely to start work for development of a new sewerage system in the area in November.

People of the area said they have been facing serious waterlogging over the years during the rainy seasons, but the authorities do not take any effective steps to solve the perennial problem.