THANE: Almost a year after residents of Kalwa’s Dattawadi wrote to the Thane civic body about the problem of overflowing
nullah behind their homes from the railway tracks, ward officials have finally made a temporary drainage in the vicinity to divert the flow of water from the residential area.
Residents of the area have been facing severe waterlogging since 2015 owing to accumulation of drainage water from the railway tracks behind their houses every
monsoon.
“As ours is a low-lying area between the main road and a railway track, the rising drainage water gushing down the railway tracks every year would result in us having to wade through knee-deep water to enter our homes. Our area turns into a place riddled with waste, rodents and accompanying viruses and parasites, said P Jaisinghani, a senior citizen from
Lilavati Nagar cooperative housing society.
He added that the locals got in touch with the ward officers last year, who came and conducted a recce of the place and realised the gravity of the situation. “Thereafter we were in constant touch with them, telling them about flooding every time, right until Friday, when they actually brought some labourers and started working on a solution,” he said.
A team of daily wage labourers spent the Saturday not only desilting the nullah behind the societies to divert more water from these homes on rainy days, but also increased the height of the boundaries of this temporary drainage so that the water does not flow out and enter the houses. “We have a few contractors working on the nullah cleaning project and they have been asked to lend their services to this area for the day. They cleared the rubbish gathered at the bottom of the nullah so that the rain water along with the water coming down from the railway lines has some place to pass through. As the area comes under the railways we cannot take any permanent action hastily, but are doing our best to control the situation,” said Vijay Jadhav, civic official from the
Kalwa ward office.
While civic officials have taken their first action to make the situation better, locals continue to face slight waterlogging, and are already awaiting the end of monsoon.
“Even though officials deepened and widened this nullah, the rain showers on Friday resulted in ankle level water accumulating in our areas. The officials said that they would need to collaborate with the railways for a permanent solution and that that the work would happen only after the monsoon. We are now bracing for the same issues this year and hoping the rains end soon,” added a resident.