Mumbai: BMC begins pre-monsoon works

The civic body has been tasked with completing pre-monsoon works by May 31

Amid lockdown, the BMC has started pre-monsoon works of road resurfacing, desilting and bridge repairs to avoid flooding and waterlogging during the upcoming monsoon season.

With the monsoon onset date for Mumbai this year being June 11, BMC has over a month-and-a-half to complete pre-monsoon works. It has restarted 255 works of roads repair and resurfacing, 27 works of bridge repairs, 38 works of stormwater drains (including desilting) and 100 other repair works with 3,879 labourers working across Mumbai.

The civic body has been tasked with completing pre-monsoon works by May 31 while following guidelines like maintaining social distancing norms and providing masks to labourers. “Pre-monsoon works can’t stop, if that happens, there will be lot of issues – flooding, accidents and traffic disruptions. We are adopting safety precautions for our workers. We are not digging up any new roads, we are just working on the roads that are already dug up,” Additional Municipal Commissioner P Velrasu said.

BMC has restarted nine water supply, 22 sewerage, 255 road, 27 bridge, 38 stormwater drain and eight sewage disposal projects. Also, 39 projects from the hydraulic department is in progress.

Work has also resumed on the coastal road project with 416 labourers. Officials said they had toomplete pending works for the project before monsoon set in.

In case of nullahs and rivers, BMC carries out 70 per cent of the desilting works before the monsoon. The city has around 276 km of 280 major nullahs, and around 438 km of minor nullahs. The BMC needs to remove 3.62 lakh metric tonnes of waste from all these nullahs, as well as desilt a 21-km stretch in Mithi river by May 31.