Every year during the monsoon, the capital faces the brunt with several locations getting water-logged for hours, disrupting traffic and generally upsetting daily routines of several hundred office-going residents, professionals like lawyers and doctors, businessmen and the trading community.
This year the story is unlikely to be different even with the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) putting in concerted efforts with other connected departments like the Water Resources Department (WRD), Public Works department (PWD) among others.
The CCP team led by Mayor Rohit Monserrate jointly inspected some of the flood-prone locations such as Miramar and the area around the Stella Maris chapel. The WRD team also did some work there and has been asked to make an altogether alternate drainage for storm water in this area as underlying wires were clogging the existing drains, especially the internal areas between Miramar and Bal Bhavan.
The community, mostly senior citizens and well-heeled upper middle-class businessmen and professionals living in the area around the Stella Maris Chapel have suffered perennial flooding issues during monsoons over the last decade or so, the Mayor acknowledged.
Additionally, flooding and water-logging during the monsoon is also a common occurrence within Central Panaji along the two throughfare roads -- 18th June Road and the MG Road.
According to Monserrate, clearing drains has been an ongoing task being carried out by several dozen regular workers of the CCP since March. This work is being overseen by a handful of supervisors and local councillors are consulted.
The Mayor however admitted that executing this pre-monsoon work has got hampered in several locales due to the road-digging and excavation done by contractors for the 'Smart City' projects.
He however claimed that the Smart City authorities have been spoken to and urged to ensure that the main underground drainage system which outlets stormwater into Mandovi river, is clear when winding up their work before the monsoon hits.
WRD pumping station
does the trick for Mala
In Mala, especially the periphery of the lake, residents have had nightmarish experiences during monsoons for years. Water gushing in and flooding their homes was a common occurrence and often it used to happen in the dead of the night -- post midnight and in pre-dawn hours.
Residents were however spared this problem last year, which officials say was because of the success of the 24x7 pumping station set up by the WRD there.
"As the lake gets filled up, the pumping station pumps water in large quantities into the Ourem creek across the road," an official said. The performance and efficacy of this pumping station will have to be closely monitored in the upcoming monsoon months to measure its success, he added.
Pruning trees
Another pre-monsoon task is the pruning of trees and branches which hover dangerously over heavily used roads and paths commonly taken by pedestrians. Tree branches hanging over overhead wires, especially in the outlying rural locales of Taleigao and St Cruz, are normally cut by the local bodies as their falling down when heavy rains accompanied by high speed winds are the most common cause of power supply breakdowns.
While, Monserrate said that such pruning of trees in the CCP jurisdiction has been completed, officials in St Cruz and Taleigao panchayats disclosed that work in their respective areas is ongoing.
Apart from pruning trees, work related to cleaning gutters and drains, besides clearing garbage and silt from drains and open nullahs which lead to water-holding lakes and low-lying areas, is also ongoing, they said.
Smart City work could
complicate anti-flooding steps
The local bodies may have done their job, but the ongoing 'smart city' work being executed under the aegis of a parallel authority -- Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL) -- could potentially complicate matters related to flood-control during the monsoon months.
Of particular concern could be the Ribandar area where contractors are racing against time to finish the work they have begun before the monsoon hits.
This issue -- of 'Smart City' work affecting the pre-monsoon work and also adding to the flooding problems in the city this monsoon -- figured prominently in the discussions held on Friday in the meeting of the State Disaster management Authority (SDMA).
Revenue Secretary, Sandip Jacques, IAS, who heads the SDMA, chaired the meeting and is said to have serious concern over the challenges that could be faced in the city this upcoming monsoon due to the 'smart city' work.
What the SDMA will have up its sleeve when such a predicament is actually faced on the ground during the monsoon months, is unclear as yet. It is also not known if IPSCDL has a plan in place or if the SDMA has drawn any blue print to tackle it.
