NMC officials fail to bother about rain-water-drains and small canals
Nagpur: The earthy matter, fine sand, or garbage dumped into the canals and drains get carried on by the moving or running water and deposited as a sediments or silts at various places, which in turn causes the canal to get choked up with silt and prevent smooth flow of drain water. While addressing a pre-monsoon review meeting held at Dr Punjabrao Deshmukh Sabhagruha on April 20, 2016, Mayor of Nagpur city Praveen Datke ordered the desilting of Nag River, Pili River and Pohra River and all major canals in the city.
During the meeting, the Mayor enquired about the minor and major canals and drains covered under the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). He was told that work of desilting has already been initiated on some of the canals. However, the Mayor and the NMC authorities/administration seem to ignore the rain-water drains and those canals and drains situated at the peripheral and undeveloped areas of the city.
One of such ignored area where the work of cleaning the canals and drains situated in Prabhag No.1 on Koradi Road are never undertaken by the authorities. If application is given and the necessary charges are remitted, the Fire Department uses its expertise and cleans public wells or private wells. Once cleaned, the water from these wells can be utilized for drinking or other vital utilizations. However, the Fire Department undertakes such works only when VIPs’ application is received or some Ministerial pressure is applied. Common citizens’ application only gathers dust at their tables.
Mayor has given directives to NMC Administration, related departments and related zones to undertake the cleaning and desilting of all canals, drains and rain-water-drains on or before June 5, 2016.
Lack of manpower and equipments
Plans and executions are two separate parts of any development. Any pro-active work without adequate number of personnel or required tools and equipments will be rendered useless. A similar instance can be noticed at NMC pre-monsoon meeting too.
The orders or directive of the Mayor seems to be practically impossible. The minor, medium and large canals and drains run into hundreds. This necessarily means than the NMC requires hundreds of sanitation personnel too. One major drawback on NMC plans is the lack of equipments especially JCB machine which is used for desilting and cleaning the canals and drains. One JCB in 10 zones cannot clean or desilt the canals and drains in the allocated period of 30-40 days. The cost of renting private JCB machines is also very high making the plans of desilting a very costly affair.
This just goes on to prove that whatever the Ruling party and the NMC Administration may try to publicize their intentions and plans, as usual, like every year, this year too, Nagpur city will have to face problems of water-logging and other problems during the monsoon season. Sufficient manpower, pro-active intentions and adequate number or machinery alone will make the directives of Mayor be fulfilled.
By Rajeev Ranjan Kushwaha (rajeev.nagpurtoday@gmail.com)
