PUNE: The civic administration has started pre-monsoon cleaning of nullahs and stormwater lines across the city, with a target to complete the work by the first week of June.
The tendering process, work order and deployment of agencies were completed last week.
Approximately 7% of the work has been done so far, the Pune civic administration said.
The pre-monsoon work is vital as various parts of the city have witnessed flash floods in the last few years because of a high intensity of rain that has fallen within a span of a few hours.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has taken various steps in the last two years to reduce the impact of flooding, said officials.
Some of these include strengthening of stormwater line network, deepening and cleaning of nullahs, increasing the capacity of drainage lines, construction of culverts etc.
The civic officials said that this year the work is expected to be over by the first week of June.
“Most work will be done in the next three weeks. We have already formed teams to oversee the work. Besides this step, the ward offices have been instructed to monitor the work in their respective areas. The agencies involved in cleaning work have been asked to share the photographs of the work as part of continuous monitoring,” the officials said.
The administration has identified at least 76 critical spots in nullahs prone to flooding. As many as 373 culverts have been listed on these nullahs for cleaning.
The civic administration has allotted Rs12crore for the cleaning work, while Rs40crore has been set aside for different flooding spots to be tackled under the stormwater lines project.
Wadgaonsheri Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Sunil Tingre on Wednesday conducted the inspections of various locations in Wadgaonsheri, Kalyaninagar, Vimannagar, Shastrinagar, Somnathnagar along with the civic officials.
Tingre said that the visit was intended to discuss measures to restrict flooding during monsoon.
“We have asked the authorities to carry out the pre-monsoon work well in advance and tackle the chronic spots. Instructions have been issued to the authorities to produce a report of the work done. The officials will face the action in case of flooding during the rains,” Tingre assured.
