PANAJI: The noon of May 31, 2017 witnessed intense pre-monsoon rain accompanied by gusty winds lashing Panaji, followed by heavy waterlogging in many parts of the capital city, forcing the people to face severe inconvenience.
And, this had happened inspite of the fact that the Corporation of the City of Panaji clearing all the drains and gutters in the city, during the pre-monsoon works, stretching from March to May, earlier this year.
The natural calamity resulted in speculative allegations and baseless reasoning from various quarters.
However, what exactly happened that day still remains a mystery!
To begin with, it is important to understand the topography of Panaji. Most of the capital city is a reclaimed piece of land with St Inez Creek on one side and Rua de Ourém Creek on the other, acting as water bodies, which flush out rainwater into Mandovi River.
In between them lies huge underground drainage system from Dempo House to Mandovi bridge area having as many as 13 drain outlets all leading into Mandovi river.
This underground drainage system constructed during the Portuguese regime is so large and wide that a team of people can easily take up underground tour of the city.
Coming out with this information, Haroon, the person in charge of cleaning the city underground drainage system informed that on the fateful day, the Mandovi River was experiencing a high tide.
“In reality, all the rainwater collected in Panaji naturally flows into Mandovi river through the underground drainage system, as long as the level of river water along the capital city is 1.6 mts high,” he informed adding that on May 31, this level had risen to a height of 2.10 mts and hence no way the rainwater could have flowed into the river.
“As a result, the water was flushed backwards through the cleared underground drainage system in the city, especially due to gusty winds and force of the high tide water,” Haroon maintained, adding that this water even came up till the footpath of the CCP headquarters.
Haroon also stated that the design of the basement parking lot of the city municipal market is such that the rainwater gets collected in its entire area, instead of being discharged into the underground drains.
“However, there is a pump, which draws the logged water out of this parking lot,” he added, observing that the mud used to plant trees in the median strip of the D B Bandodkar Road, especially along the Campal area, gets spread all over the place during heavy rains, and blocks the drains in the area, in turn causing water logging, especially, near the directorate of health services.
The City Mayor Surendra Furtado maintained that he had personally supervised clearing of the underground city drains, during the summer.
“In fact, the drainage system is always found to have accumulation of pieces of shells, including clam shells, which travel backwards from the river during the high tide, along with the silt,” Furtado added, informing that besides cleaning these shells and silt in the drains, the CCP had also cleared the Altinho hill of various discarded materials like old pillows, bed sheets, and household items, thrown out by people residing along the hill.
“Had we not done it then all these things would have travelled down along with the waters of the pre-monsoon rain and choked mouths of the city gutters and drains,” he noted.
Speaking further, the City Mayor said that there exist certain open drains in the city, in places like 18th June Road, Azad Maidan and police station area, which get choked by items such as paper and plastic cups, plastic bottles and wrappers, etc thrown in them mainly by the visiting tourists.
“They clog the mouth of these open drains, resulting in logging of rainwater,” he informed, admitting that the sweepers of the corporation are also to be blamed for not performing their duties properly, which leaves these open drained choked.
It was also informed that Larsen and Toubro, which is presently constructing the third Mandovi bridge, is responsible for clogging the drains near the bus stand, with the debris of the ongoing bridge work, which is directly responsible for flooding of the bus stand area.
Furtado further maintained that the public works department officials, during a meeting held on February 13, 2017, in his chamber, were requested to clear all major drains in the city, including those along D B Bandodkar Road, which comes under the jurisdiction of the PWD and not the CCP.
“However, the PWD did not take up cleaning of many drains as well as their improvement, repairs, and construction,” he alleged, pointing out that the area of Miramar Circle, which is under the jurisdiction of the PWD still remains waterlogged.
“Furthermore, the new Miramar-Dona Paula road, which is under the jurisdiction of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation is also found to be flooded with rain water, and after yesterday night’s rain, the water had submerged this road till today late evening,” the City Mayor pointed out, stating that on the contrary, after May 31, no Panaji area was found to be waterlogged, even though there has been many heavy pre-monsoon showers lashing the city.
Although the exact cause of flooding of the city areas has been presented, it is still unknown whether the citizens will have to bear with May 31 type scenario every time when the city is lashed by heavy rains, during the high tide in the Mandovi river.