Rain washes away Palike preparedness

The evening showers on Saturday served to test the monsoon preparedness of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.

While several places in the City were waterlogged, rainwater gushed into houses in some low-lying areas. The rain left trees uprooted in as many as nine areas. A wall collapsed at JP Nagar, but there were no reports of any casualties.

Palike engineers who had to be present at BBMP control rooms to address rain-related problems were missing.

Angered by their neglect of duty, Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy and Deputy Mayor L Srinivas, touring the City to monitor the situation, directed suspension of three engineers -  R Jagannath, an assistant executive engineer of Ward-99, K N Krishnamurthy and H Ravindranath, the assistant engineers of Town Planning Department.

Traffic went haywire as Bangalore recorded 41.2 mm of rain in four hours. The lack of co-ordination between the Palike and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board came to fore with a manhole on Kasturba Road overflowing for the third consecutive day.

Waterlogging was reported from Bhuvaneshwari Nagar, Park Road, Banashankari II Stage, Nagamma Layout, Urvashi Theatre, NR Colony, Indiranagar and near Sun City in Sarjapur.

Areas in and around Bangalore South received heavy rainfall. A huge mango tree that came crashing down on Nandidurga Road put people to great inconvenience.

According to the Meteorological Department, there will be no change in the weather conditions in the next few days.