Flooding: BDA appoints panel to suggest remedy

Flooding: BDA appoints panel to suggest remedy

The Hindu

The team will study the problem in HSR Layout

BANGALORE: After being exposed for faulty town planning in HSR Layout during the recent downpour, Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has finally decided to act.

Report

The Bangalore Development Authority has appointed a Delhi-based expert committee to provide a technical solution to prevent flooding in the area. A preliminary report submitted by the expert panel said the drains and culverts in the area had to be replaced as they had been weakened by the construction of several structures above them and by the overgrowth of dense vegetation.

Larger drains

The team has proposed larger drains that can take three times the capacity of the present system. New culverts will also be added.

The final report of the project, which is estimated to cost Rs. 15 crores, will be completed in 45 days, says Bangalore Development Authority Commissioner M.N. Vidyashankar.

HSR Layout, developed by the Bangalore Development Authority in 1986, is situated around several natural tanks such as Agara, Madivala, Begur, Hulimavu, Puttenahalli and Chinnagere.

It is one of the few layouts that has not been handed over to the civic authorities and is being maintained by the Bangalore Development Authority.

The houses (there are more than 9,000 sites in the layout) have been built along the natural line of the flow of water from the tanks and lakes.

An urban research expert says the main problem with the layout is that the drain connecting Agara and Madivala lakes was not widened but instead the water was simply diverted to areas which now have become slums.

Almost all of HSR Layout was flooded.

A resident of the layout says that his basement was in five-foot water during rains. "It took us two days to get the water out and salvage whatever we could. The basement was my study," he adds.

Mr. Vidyashankar refutes charges of any faulty planning by the Bangalore Development Authority in developing the layout. "No one ever expected all the lakes and the tanks in the area to overflow. We had planned for two to three lakes overflowing but not all of them at a time," he adds.

Now that flood control planning has been undertaken for HSR Layout, will it be undertaken in other Bangalore Development Authority layouts as well? No, says Mr. Vidyashankar.

He says most other layouts developed by the Bangalore Development Authority such as the Jnana Bharthi Layout have been handed over to the respective civic authorities.

"We no longer have any jurisdiction over them. Anyway, we did not get complaints of flooding from any other layout," he says.