DRAINAGE AND WATERLOGGING No desilting, inappropriate disposal add to residents’ woes Charanjit Singh Teja Amritsar, July 19 The 445-year-old holy city is naturally sloped down towards the Golden Temple. It has always been a major challenge for the Municipal Corporation (MC) to drain rainwater out of the old city areas. The streets around the Golden Temple are often submerged even after a moderate rain. It takes five to 10 hours, sometimes two days, to drain rainwater out of the low-lying areas of the old city. Even after spending Rs 300 crore on the Golden Temple Heritage Street project, former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had failed to address the waterlogging issue. The stretch from Jallianwala Bagh to Bharavan Da Dhaba witnesses waterlogging every now and then. Despite having storm sewerage, the area remains inundated for hours after showers. The streets and major roads of the walled city have storm sewerage, but these provide a little respite. The disposal point of the storm sewerage is in the overflowing nullah (drain) near Bangla Basti. The overflowing nullah might have been pumping effluent back into storm sewerage, said Jagdish Singh a resident. Apart from the walled city area, BRTS authorities had installed storm sewerage along with the 30-km metro bus corridor. A major cave-in, covering a considerable portion on the Mall Road, had exposed the system of storm sewerage and water recharge wells. One of the MC officials had claimed that the storm sewerage was not functional at the BRTS route as it was silt up during construction. No government agency has conducted desilting of the storm sewerage alongside the metro bus corridor. The outer city areas, including Putligarh, Bhandari Bridge, Aan Aam Cinema Road, Majitha Road, Link Road and Surta Singh Road, are the major trouble spots. Waterlogging in Putalighar hits the commercial activity for a few days after rain. Motor-operated disposals are the only solution to drain water from these areas. The disposal machinery on sanitary sewerage needs five to six hours to bring the situation under control. Some of the disposal pumps are either lying defunct or not upgraded, adding to residents’ woes. Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu said, “We will spend more than Rs 100 crore on the upgradate work of the storm sewerage system in the walled city. The issues of the walled city will be sorted out. In the outer city areas, we have initiated cleaning of chambers which laed to waterlogging.”

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