<p>Bangalore becomes one big pool of dirty water when it rains, even as civic agencies make half-hearted attempts to declog sewage lines, stormwater drains just before monsoon each year.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Talk about torrential rains in Bangalore, and you know what images appear before you in all their dramatic fury: Vehicles in their thousands trapped in water-logged roads; residents of low-lying area haplessly caught in flooded houses; overflowing manholes, blocked drains, floating garbage and sewage mixing with drinking water in pipelines.<br /><br /> These aren’t gory visuals from a run-down, war-torn distant City, but from a wannabe global metropolis, aspiring to wear that ‘developed’ tag with decorum!<br /><br />Its creaking civic infrastructure exposed, like its zillion potholes, Bangalore during monsoon is not your destination. But this advice is for someone about to tour the City, not for the lakhs who are already here, battling, struggling, grumbling... <br /><br />The least the City expects, then, from its civic agencies is a semblance of rain-preparedness. Is the BBMP prepared, is the BWSSB - caught up in its underground drainage project - ready? <br /><br />Experts reiterate that the rain havoc in Bangalore is mainly man-made, with poor civic sense among the public and an equally bad rain crisis management by the civic agencies. They find it appalling that the State government is sitting on reports of numerous committees on how to manage things better. Urban planning experts have made innumerable recommendations, but the response is either half-hearted or nothing at all.<br /><br /> The only rain preparedness that the civic agencies talk about is desilting of stormwater drains, shoulder drains and manholes. Despite these, which are currently underway but nowhere near completion, the rains are bound to run down Bangalore yet again. <br /><br />Take the case of Ejipura, a low lying area where flooding is an annual, predictable eventuality. The area has an unsolved gradient problem, and that is precisely why the stormwater drain and the sanitary pipelines do not let water and sewage flow with gravity. Although BWSSB has erected wet wells to solve the back flow of drainage water, the stormwater drain still remains a problem. <br /><br />Although there has been some improvement of late, some pockets of Ejipura face the threat of flooding this year too. As M V K Anil Kumar, secretary of the area’s residents’ welfare association, points out, until two years ago, rainwater used to enter every house during monsoon. The wet wells have ensured that some of that water gets diverted to Bellandur Lake. <br /><br />Disappearing lakes <br /><br />The City’s lakes were not just water bodies. They were natural reservoirs for rainwater. But thanks to the civic agencies’ apathetic maintenance, most lakes have either vanished or turned into cesspools or worse, garbage dumping yards.<br /><br /> The stormwater drains, the natural inlets of rainwater into the lakes, have been widely encroached. The path connecting the four major valleys – Vrishabhavathi, Hebbal, Koramangala and Challaghatta valley are now hardly well connected for rainwater to flow easily. With no other option left, the rainwater flows onto the main roads, triggering inundation.<br /><br />Another problem is that the SWD and sanitary lines in the City are interlinked. Twenty-five per cent of the manholes are located in SWDs. So every time it rains, rainwater mixes with sewage and flows onto the road. It is quite natural for the public to open the manhole lid when it rains. All the dirt on the road including garbage flows into the sanitary system blocking the drains completely, explains BWSSB’s engineer-in-chief T Venkataraju. <br /><br />“We have seen some prominent restaurants dumping solid waste, including meat waste into the manholes in the middle of the night. When our workers open the manhole to check the clogging, they have found plastic bags. As rainwater also flows in are manholes, the garbage blocks the drains leading to waterlogging on the roads,” he adds.<br /><br />According to Venkataraju, BWSSB carries out desilting work in low lying areas every year. In 2010, nearly 168 km of sanitary pipelines were desilted and in 2011, 28.4 km of sanitary pipelines were desilted. He promises that desilting work in manholes located in low-lying areas will be carried out before monsoon this year.<br /><br />BWSSB has also taken up an Environmental Action Plan (EAP) project to curb flow of sewage water into stormwater drains. S M Basavaraj, chief engineer for corporation planning and waste water management, BWSSB, says: “The EAP projects, the only permanent solution to the drainage network problems, are concentrated on the 243-km network connecting the different valleys of the City. Work related to the Hebbal valley will be completed in the coming days. The Challaghatta valley work will be completed by December 2012, and the Vrishabhavathi and Koramangala valley work will be taken up shortly.”<br /><br />The BWSSB sanitary work in newly-added BBMP areas, he agrees, may cause problems to residents as the underground drains are being laid for the first time in these areas. The chief secretary has given special permission for the work there so that the project is not stopped even during monsoon, a BWSSB official said. He said efforts will be made not to cause any inconvenience to the public. <br /><br />BBMP measures<br /><br />On its part, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) maintains it is prepared for the rainy season. The Palike Commissioner M K Shankarlinge Gowda says, “We have already initiated measures to check flooding this year. Desilting of lakes, major stormwater drains and rainwater harvesting is going on in the City. In low-lying areas, we are taking extra-precautions this year.”<br /><br />The Palike claims it has carried out extensive desilting of lakes and stormwater drains, although several areas in the City tell a different story. BBMP is also banking on, what it says, is the effective implementation of rainwater harvesting in public places, to prevent flooding. <br /><br />On March 3, the Commissioner had issued a circular, asking the BBMP zonal commissioners to ensure removal of sludge from the sewage drains, removal of silt from shoulder drains and stocking sand bags in the flood-prone low-lying areas. <br /><br />The Palike PRO S S Khandre says Prahari squads will be set up at all BBMP control rooms across the City throughout monsoon to attend to all complaints related to uprooting of trees, flooding or any rain-related mishap. “The BBMP hospitals will be equipped to handle any water-borne diseases,” says Khandre.<br /><br />Yet, the challenge of SWD and lake encroachment remains huge as ever. A Palike officer admits that the problem of flooding will persist so long as the SWDs and lakes are not cleared completely. Therein lies the big problem.</p>
<p>Bangalore becomes one big pool of dirty water when it rains, even as civic agencies make half-hearted attempts to declog sewage lines, stormwater drains just before monsoon each year.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Talk about torrential rains in Bangalore, and you know what images appear before you in all their dramatic fury: Vehicles in their thousands trapped in water-logged roads; residents of low-lying area haplessly caught in flooded houses; overflowing manholes, blocked drains, floating garbage and sewage mixing with drinking water in pipelines.<br /><br /> These aren’t gory visuals from a run-down, war-torn distant City, but from a wannabe global metropolis, aspiring to wear that ‘developed’ tag with decorum!<br /><br />Its creaking civic infrastructure exposed, like its zillion potholes, Bangalore during monsoon is not your destination. But this advice is for someone about to tour the City, not for the lakhs who are already here, battling, struggling, grumbling... <br /><br />The least the City expects, then, from its civic agencies is a semblance of rain-preparedness. Is the BBMP prepared, is the BWSSB - caught up in its underground drainage project - ready? <br /><br />Experts reiterate that the rain havoc in Bangalore is mainly man-made, with poor civic sense among the public and an equally bad rain crisis management by the civic agencies. They find it appalling that the State government is sitting on reports of numerous committees on how to manage things better. Urban planning experts have made innumerable recommendations, but the response is either half-hearted or nothing at all.<br /><br /> The only rain preparedness that the civic agencies talk about is desilting of stormwater drains, shoulder drains and manholes. Despite these, which are currently underway but nowhere near completion, the rains are bound to run down Bangalore yet again. <br /><br />Take the case of Ejipura, a low lying area where flooding is an annual, predictable eventuality. The area has an unsolved gradient problem, and that is precisely why the stormwater drain and the sanitary pipelines do not let water and sewage flow with gravity. Although BWSSB has erected wet wells to solve the back flow of drainage water, the stormwater drain still remains a problem. <br /><br />Although there has been some improvement of late, some pockets of Ejipura face the threat of flooding this year too. As M V K Anil Kumar, secretary of the area’s residents’ welfare association, points out, until two years ago, rainwater used to enter every house during monsoon. The wet wells have ensured that some of that water gets diverted to Bellandur Lake. <br /><br />Disappearing lakes <br /><br />The City’s lakes were not just water bodies. They were natural reservoirs for rainwater. But thanks to the civic agencies’ apathetic maintenance, most lakes have either vanished or turned into cesspools or worse, garbage dumping yards.<br /><br /> The stormwater drains, the natural inlets of rainwater into the lakes, have been widely encroached. The path connecting the four major valleys – Vrishabhavathi, Hebbal, Koramangala and Challaghatta valley are now hardly well connected for rainwater to flow easily. With no other option left, the rainwater flows onto the main roads, triggering inundation.<br /><br />Another problem is that the SWD and sanitary lines in the City are interlinked. Twenty-five per cent of the manholes are located in SWDs. So every time it rains, rainwater mixes with sewage and flows onto the road. It is quite natural for the public to open the manhole lid when it rains. All the dirt on the road including garbage flows into the sanitary system blocking the drains completely, explains BWSSB’s engineer-in-chief T Venkataraju. <br /><br />“We have seen some prominent restaurants dumping solid waste, including meat waste into the manholes in the middle of the night. When our workers open the manhole to check the clogging, they have found plastic bags. As rainwater also flows in are manholes, the garbage blocks the drains leading to waterlogging on the roads,” he adds.<br /><br />According to Venkataraju, BWSSB carries out desilting work in low lying areas every year. In 2010, nearly 168 km of sanitary pipelines were desilted and in 2011, 28.4 km of sanitary pipelines were desilted. He promises that desilting work in manholes located in low-lying areas will be carried out before monsoon this year.<br /><br />BWSSB has also taken up an Environmental Action Plan (EAP) project to curb flow of sewage water into stormwater drains. S M Basavaraj, chief engineer for corporation planning and waste water management, BWSSB, says: “The EAP projects, the only permanent solution to the drainage network problems, are concentrated on the 243-km network connecting the different valleys of the City. Work related to the Hebbal valley will be completed in the coming days. The Challaghatta valley work will be completed by December 2012, and the Vrishabhavathi and Koramangala valley work will be taken up shortly.”<br /><br />The BWSSB sanitary work in newly-added BBMP areas, he agrees, may cause problems to residents as the underground drains are being laid for the first time in these areas. The chief secretary has given special permission for the work there so that the project is not stopped even during monsoon, a BWSSB official said. He said efforts will be made not to cause any inconvenience to the public. <br /><br />BBMP measures<br /><br />On its part, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) maintains it is prepared for the rainy season. The Palike Commissioner M K Shankarlinge Gowda says, “We have already initiated measures to check flooding this year. Desilting of lakes, major stormwater drains and rainwater harvesting is going on in the City. In low-lying areas, we are taking extra-precautions this year.”<br /><br />The Palike claims it has carried out extensive desilting of lakes and stormwater drains, although several areas in the City tell a different story. BBMP is also banking on, what it says, is the effective implementation of rainwater harvesting in public places, to prevent flooding. <br /><br />On March 3, the Commissioner had issued a circular, asking the BBMP zonal commissioners to ensure removal of sludge from the sewage drains, removal of silt from shoulder drains and stocking sand bags in the flood-prone low-lying areas. <br /><br />The Palike PRO S S Khandre says Prahari squads will be set up at all BBMP control rooms across the City throughout monsoon to attend to all complaints related to uprooting of trees, flooding or any rain-related mishap. “The BBMP hospitals will be equipped to handle any water-borne diseases,” says Khandre.<br /><br />Yet, the challenge of SWD and lake encroachment remains huge as ever. A Palike officer admits that the problem of flooding will persist so long as the SWDs and lakes are not cleared completely. Therein lies the big problem.</p>
