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State urged to take steps to prevent Mumbai flooding
Opposition party Shiv Sena has urged the Maharashtra government to ensure there is no waterlogging during the monsoon which is expected to hit this city in a week.
- By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
- Published: 23:00 June 2, 2009
Mumbai: Opposition party Shiv Sena has urged the Maharashtra government to ensure there is no waterlogging during the monsoon which is expected to hit this city in a week.
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray met Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan urging him to ensure there is co-ordination between various agencies since several infrastructural projects are yet to be completed.
As rain clouds gather, several projects, especially those for widening and clean up the Mithi River, widening of roads as well as construction of flyovers and the metro rail, are moving at a slow pace.
This has caused inconvenience to road users as well as led to severe traffic snarls.
Thackeray visited Vidhan Bhavan, where the legislative session started on Monday, and met the chief minister with a memorandum seeking to ensure that all storm water drains are cleared and other pre-monsoon work is completed to prevent floods.
The unprecedented rains on July 26, 2005 caused severe flooding in Mumbai and claimed hundreds of lives.
Chavan assured Thackeray and the delegation, that he led and which included former Lok Sabha speaker Manohar Joshi, that there would be coordination between the Airport Authority of India (AAI), Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Chavan said the state chief secretary will soon convene a meeting of officials to ensure that all authorities concerned co-ordinate to finish the work. He also said that police help must be sought to stop new encroachments in Mumbai.
Assuring the Shiv Sena leader that there would be no bias on the basis of political parties in solving Mumbai's problems, he said slum rehabilitation and infrastructure would be the top priority for the city.
Meanwhile, a study on widening of the Mithi River states that if the river flowing below the runway of the airport has to be widened to avoid flooding, 25 per cent of the main runway will have to be closed for more than a year.
With congestion at Mumbai's airport and skies and flooding on the runway during monsoon, there would be even more delays of flights.
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