BCC, don’t rain excuses

IT POURS, BUT WHO CARES?
BCC, don’t rain excuses
The Times of India

Bangalore: Fifteen minutes after a rainfall of two inches, the city ‘drowns’. This, despite the fact that Bangalore is 920 mts above sea level.

And as meteorological and urban planning experts say, the flooding is a factor of the last decade and that storm water drains, their capacity and lack of it are culpable. On Tuesday, within minutes, drains were choked and commercial hubs like Rest house Road, M.G. Road, Ulsoor Road, Indiranagar, Koramangala had a virtual clash of chassis as cars floated in window-deep water.

The answer lies in the fact that Bangalore’s drains are 3-4 ft in depth unlike a Reno City which has drains 20 feet in depth. The city has 3,500 km of roads and flowing along either side are 7000 km of drains. “Can a drain be as wide as a road,’’ asks BCC Technical Adviser R. Jaiprasad. Having worked on drains, roads, pavements, flyovers et al for almost three decades now, he attributes the city’s civic woes to its drastically changing topography.

“There is no empty land for percolation, no balancing reservoir. The rain water obviously has to flow down the stormwater drains and they are choked because we cannot deepen them in width nor extend them in length. Periodic desilting helps sure but it’s a vicious cycle,’’ explains Jaiprasad. The logistics of the matter run thus — all the rainwater has to ultimately flow down the four major valleys Koramangala, Challaghatta, Vrishabhavathi and Hebbal. The rainwater first goes to the drains on every road, then flow into secondary drains which are in turn fed by tertiary drains.

The solution for alleviating flooding as envisaged by urban planners are, widening of drains to required cross-section, regradation of valleys to increase speed leading to quick discharge and desilting of tertiary drains.

Some Rs 600 crore has been earmarked for the purpose and as commissioner Jothiramalingam reiterates, work on Koramangala Valley has started. Could there possibly be no floods next monsoon then...?

Inspection: Following instructions of mayor Narayanaswamy, three teams headed by senior officers of the BCC made an extensive inspection of rain-affected areas to review relief measures on Wednesday.