The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday directed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to establish grievance redressal system in every ward to swiftly attend to the problems faced by the unprecedented rain in the city.
A Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty issued the direction while hearing a PIL petition, through which the court is monitoring issues related to poor maintenance of city roads.
Also, the BBMP was directed to instruct all the ward-level engineers to ensure that complaints of the public are attended immediately.
As the BBMP counsel V. Sreenidhi told the Bench that it is being proposed to construct sluice gates in the lakes to control the water level by releasing excess water before start of monsoon so that overflowing or breach of lake bunds be prevented, the Bench directed the civic body to expeditiously submit the proposal to the State government for its approval.
Earlier, the Bench wanted to know what action taken by the BBMP to assist the people in flood-affected areas and to clear waterlogging. The Bench was of the view that existing grievance redressal system at the zonal level was insufficient to swiftly attend to the problems of the people.
Meanwhile, the BBMP told the court that the city has received unprecedented rain from past one week, and flooding and waterlogging was witnessed due to breach of bunds of several lakes as lakes received excess rain water and in some areas storm water drains overflowed.
Three to five times
In its data on rainfall submitted to the court, the BBMP stated that rainfall was an average three to five times between September 1 and September 5 this year in the eight zones when compared to the average rainfall during this period in the previous years. While average rainfall in the eight zones during this period was in the range of 21 mm to 27 mm, it was between 64 mm and 104 mm this time, the BBMP’s data showed quoting the details from the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre.
Houses affected
On the impact of heavy rainfall on September 4, the BBMP said that 627 and 600 houses were affected respectively in East (which received 81.8 mm rain) and Mahadevapura zones (83.8 mm), and 44 and 30 houses affected in South (76mm) and Bommanahalli (52.5 mm) zones, respectively. While 30 houses were affected in Yelahanka zone (64.4 mm), three houses affected in R.R. Nagar (55.8 mm) zones, and no houses affected in Dasarahalli (50.8 mm) and West zone (961.9 mm), the BBMP stated.
