Bengaluru: Bengaluru Development Minister, K J George, lost his temper and pulled up BBMP officers and Mayor G Padmavathi apologised, promising “No more floods.” But the people of the many areas, that were waterlogged and suffered damage in the recent heavy rain, were unforgiving during their inspection of the localities on Saturday.
The team, which visited J C Road, Double Road, Shanthinagar, Ejipura, Adugodi, Avanisrungeri, Saraswathi Puram, Anepalya, ST Bed and Koramangala , which bore the brunt of the rain havoc, was met with angry queries from people on why no precautions were taken to avert the flooding. Most were in no mood to listen to the justifications given and the listing of measures taken by the BBMP to help them.
Minister KJ George with Mayor Padmavathi and others inspected the rain affected areas of Bengaluru City, in Bengaluru on Saturday (Photo: DC)
When Mr George tried to explain the reasons for the flooding to the people of Shanthinagar, an engineer among them interrupted him to ask angrily why the Storm water Drain work was progressing at a snail’s pace and warned both him and the officials not to test the residents' patience.
At ST Bed Layout, one of the worst hit in the heavy rain, housewives came out on to the streets to lambast the Minister, Mayor and BBMP commissioner for their failure to keep their homes from being flooded with rain water and sewage “What were you doing before the rains?” they asked, demanding compensation for the damage caused. At some places Mr George himself lost his temper over the poor performance of the officials and Mayor Padmavathi was apologetic, promising the people they would not see such flooding in future. Speaking to reporters later, Mr George said never in the history of the city had it received 18 mm of rain in a few hours. “The city is capable of handling 8 to 9 mm of rain. But when it exceeds this we have flooding. The problem is more severe in low lying areas and the breaching of the Madiwala lake added to the mess,” he explained.
Pointing out that the 800- km long storm water drain network was being remodelled at a cost of Rs 800 crore, he said the work had been completed over 400 kms and promised the rest would be finished in another six months. “All measures have been taken to find a permanent solution (to the problem of flooding),” he maintained.
Leaning tower yet to be fully demolished
Meanwhile, the building in Ejipura that has split down the middle owing to its foundation sinking in rain has not yet been demolished as there isn’t enough space around it for machines to be deployed. With the job being done manually , it will reportedly take another three or four days to bring it down.
