Sarthak Kanjilal
Port Blair, June 06: Rains are ought to bring joy. But, more often than not, they bring misery to Port Blarians in the form of heavy water logging, which in turn leads to traffic jams.
Heavy rain since last night exposed the Port Blair Municipal Councils tall claims of monsoon preparedness and also Swachh Bharat. As people suffered enormous problems yesterday after the heavy rain.
The entire city drains were found choked resulting in flood like situation in various parts of the city. Most of the places like Corbyn’s Cove, Birchgunj, Sippighat, Prothrapur were found to be flooded. Many households and shop were flooded in the Austinabad and Prothrapur area.
“Only 12 hours of rain is enough for exposing the PBMC’s poor planning. Water logging and traffic jams have become common after rain. I was stuck on Austinabad for more than an hour,” said a Pathargudda resident.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, a Grocery Shop Owner of Austinabad area said that the drain very closed to their shop, which was heightened by authorities recently, is of no use. Despite recent drain repair, more than one feet of water entered inside the shop so speedily that he couldn’t do anything to save items kept inside his shop.
Further talking to Andaman Sheekha, a Photocopy Shop Owner at Austinabad said that he has been requesting the area Councillor for years for constructing a drain but till date nothing was done from PBMC’s side, letting them to suffer heavy loss.
“Only a staff of Revenue Department visited us this morning but he didn’t give any assurance whether the administration will give us any compensation or not,” said the Xerox Shop Owner.
Talking to Andaman Sheekha, the Councillor, Ward Number 23, Mr Sanjay Meshack said that the PBMC has been planning to clear all drains in city before monsoon to prevent water logging during the monsoon but nothing has been done professionally.
“Why the authorities don’t complete the work in the particular time, more than hundreds of houses in my area are flooded,” Mr Sanjay said.
Mr Sanjay also demanded an action against a scrap dealer of Prothrapur Chowk as because of his materials, a drain got choked in the area, that resulted into flooding in many places.
