Mumbai: Railway tracks will be flood-free this monsoon, assures Central Railway

Mumbai: The Central Railway leaving no stone unturned for making railway tracks flood-free during the monsoon, for which they have identified 76 such locations which are prone to get waterlogged between CSMT and Kalyan/Panvel stations.

The Railway authorities claims to have completed work on 50 locations and they expect to complete another locations by April 20.

A senior Railway official said when they had a joint meeting with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, they were been informed there are 36 waterlogging-prone locations between stations which need to be attended before monsoon. Apart from these, 15 culverts, which are major drainage systems that take water from east to west out of the rail system, also need to be widened. The work to improve nine of these will be over before the monsoon.

CR official said they have asked IIT-Bombay to study the condition of six culverts. If they submit the report soon then we can carry out the improvement work before monsoon. “The study comprises of ways to ensure that water bypasses the tracks as it flows below them without getting logged. It also includes solutions to create arms for the culverts to ensure more openings,” said SK Jain, Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), CR.

He further added that soon two new huge water pumps will be place which can flow out nearly 1000 cubic metres of water per hour. “These pumps have five times more capacity than the regular pumps which are usually placed on the tracks during monsoon,” said Jain.

Meanwhile, the Railway authorities have also started removing muck and instead of dumping it at the Mankhurd-Vashi creek, they are using it for earthwork and levelling purposes in their projects. An alternate site for dumping has also been identified at Mankhurd which is away from mangroves.