JOIN USChennai-like flooding will not happen at KBS, say officials
While top officials from the KSRTC, the BMTC and the BMRCL assert that Kempegowda Bus Station (KBS), the City’s transport hub that also houses Namma Metro station, will not flood during heavy downpour, green activists, however, beg to differ.
The activists say that roads and areas around it will witness flooding because of the earth elevation after the Metro construction.
There have been many instances in the past where operations at KBS had come to a halt due to water stagnation in the area. The bus terminal indeed stands on the Dharmamudhi Lake and the soil below is still moist, say experts.
But Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) officials assure that everything has been taken care of. BMRCL Public Relations Officer and General Manager (Finance), UV Vasanth Rao said, “There will be no water infiltration at the station. Underground work has been done 60 feet below and all stations have been built 2-3 feet above the surface.
From the beginning of the tunnel to the down ramp huge capacity pumpsets of 2-3 lakh litres capacity have been installed. Also, the BMRCL has improved the carrying capacity of stormwater drains and linked them to the major BBMP drains. All this has been taken care of at the design stage itself.”
According to KSRTC Managing Director Rajendra Kumar Kataria, Chennai-like flooding will not happen at KBS because of the topography. However, the weak local drainage system has lead to water stagnation in the past, but there has not been flooding. BMTC Managing Director Ekroop Caur added that additional pump sets have also been installed in and around the station to ensure that there is no flooding. There is a full fledged system in place to take care of extreme weathers.
However, experts claim that while the Metro station is safe, the surrounding areas have turned vulnerable. They opine that the commercial areas in the area has sunk due to the raised surface of the land, which was not so earlier. The flow of water will change and this will lead to flooding in these places during rains. The government should have anticipated this earlier itself.
Leo Saldanha of Environment Support Group said that because of this form of construction, underpasses and garde separators and surrounding commercial spaces will get flooded during downpour.