Bengaluru, Dec. 18: Steps taken to prevent floods after National Green Tribunal (NGT) and Karnataka High Court ordered clearing storm water drains, the Bengaluru Civic Body (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike – BBMP) has succeeded about 90 per cent in preventing flooding in low lying areas in the city.
The BBMP has successfully progressed in completing desilting and setting up of Chain Link fence work on all storm water drains in the city. Floods did not occur in vast area of Bengaluru despite the city recording heavy rainfall during this year.
A civilian, Kiran Vishwanath of Basavanagudi area, a middleclass clocality in southern suburb of Bengaluru, told reporters that he was very happy to note that the BBMP taking proactive steps to prevent frequent flooding. “I am even more happier as the BBMP has even issued an order to ban utilising storm water drain’s buffer zone for personal use such as walking purpose too. Hence, with all these proactive steps, the BBMP was able to prevent flooding this time,” he explained.
He added that the BBMP has taken these initiatives for a period of three-years, as per this project, the BBMP has commenced desilting works.
After a section of citizen groups approached the High Court and NGT complaining that frequent floods were causing huge loss and the civic body must be pulled up for its lacklustre attitude. After hearing this case’s arguments from both sides, the NGT as well as Karnataka High Court had directed the BBMP to take pro-active steps to prevent flooding.
Even though the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board issued an order after both the high court and High court ordered in this regard, the state government also released adequate grants in April 2019 to take up these works.
