City braces for monsoon woes

City braces for monsoon woes
CHANDRASHEKAR G.
DC | BENGALURU


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Bengaluru maybe top dog when it comes to IT, but one shower is all it takes to send its civic bodies scurrying, tail between their legs, in search of answers to why the city is marooned every time it rains.
Thanks to the apathy of our leaders and officials, roads are waterlogged, water gushes into houses, the power goes off, buses stop plying, policemen vanish and drains overflow when the skies open up.

Rs 623 crore was spent under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission on remodelling four major storm water drains — Vrishabhavathi Valley, Koramangala, Challaghatta and Hebbal — but, as the rains on Friday and Saturday showed, the money has clearly gone down the drain.

Bengaluru has two high profile ministers in charge of the city — R. Ashok and Katta Subramanya Naidu — but that does not seem to have helped.

The desilting of drains in the city, that the government said would be taken up expeditiously, is yet to be completed.

With Chief Minister B.S.Yeddyurappa and his ministers not bothering to ensure that work vital to getting the city rain-ready has been completed, Bengaluru must now brace for a miserable monsoon.