Kochi faces waterlogging in many areas in heavy overnight showers

Heavy overnight rainfall that lashed Kochi metropolis connected Friday served arsenic a grim reminder of what lies up erstwhile the monsoon sets in, with galore areas experiencing terrible waterlogging.

Ernakulam South railway station, Kalathiparambil Road, Karikkamuri, KSRTC stand, Ernakulam North, Edakochi, Palluruthy, Panayappilly, and Edappally were among the areas affected. The Opposition Left Democratic Front is acceptable to country the United Democratic Front-led governing committee implicit the alleged nonaccomplishment of pre-monsoon works.

LDF parliamentary enactment person V.A. Sreejith alleged that the Corporation failed to coordinate efficaciously with assorted departments, a pivotal request for preventing waterlogging successful the city. Though files related to monsoon preparatory works were cleared earlier the exemplary codification of behaviour came into unit up of the Assembly election, the governing committee failed to workout due oversight, helium said.

Ernakulam South part councillor K.V.P. Krishnakumar said waterlogging successful his part has been a perennial contented owing to the constricted outlets for drainage. “Water collected successful the country has to travel done the Vivekananda Canal to the Mullassery Canal and yet to the backwaters. Due to the lack of earthy flow, a ‘petti and para’ has been installed astatine the eastbound extremity of the Mullassery Canal to pump h2o into the backwaters. Geographically, determination is simply a slope towards the eastbound broadside of Chittoor Road, starring to waterlogging successful those areas. In the past, h2o drained done a railway culvert on Kammattypadam into the canal beside GCDA. But those outlets person disappeared owed to encroachment,” helium said.

Mr. Krishnakumar added that creating aggregate outlets to drain h2o from adjacent the South railway presumption straight into the backwaters done Jos Junction and MG Road would supply important alleviation from waterlogging successful the area.

Abdul Latheef, Edakochi part councillor, lamented that Edappally Junction gets flooded adjacent during insignificant showers, with ongoing National Highway works worsening the situation. “To code the issue, a caller drain was constructed alongside Lulu Mall, passing done the Kochi Metro parking batch to transportation h2o straight to the Edappally Canal. However, past week, that drain was demolished for operation aft the metro leased retired the abstraction to a backstage party,” helium said.

Ernakulam District Residents’ Associations’ Apex Council wide caput C.C. Ajithkumar noted that portion waterlogging was reported successful Kaloor, North, and Kadavanthra, h2o drained retired comparatively quickly. “However, the concern would worsen if waterlogging coincided with precocious tide,” helium said.

The Corporation claims it has earmarked ₹20 crore for pre-monsoon works, including ₹13 lakh for each of the 76 divisions. In addition, ₹50,000 has been allocated to each part for contiguous monsoon-related restoration tasks specified arsenic clearing fallen trees from roads.