Indore initiates pre monsoon maintenance after heavy rainfall causes waterlogging and power disruption

Indore: Sunday's rainfall served as an 'eye-opener' for Indore, which reported waterlogging in many places. Additionally, trees fell on power lines, causing electricity disruptions and prompting the officials concerned to start executing pre-monsoon maintenance works.

Following the heavy downpour that lashed Indore on Sunday, leading to widespread waterlogging and numerous tree-falling incidents across the city, significant inconvenience was caused to residents. Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) is now on alert. The civic body is working to prevent a recurrence of such situations in the future, especially in areas where construction work is underway, senior officials said.

IMC commissioner Shivam Verma said that the corporation put in considerable effort previously, resulting in areas like Vijay Nagar remaining water-free this time due to completed works. However, the recent rainfall revealed new waterlogging hotspots, including Madhumilan Square (where IMC's work is in progress), Chhoti Gwaltoli, and near the GPO. Observing the waterlogging at these new locations, the diameters of the stormwater drains are being increased.

"Last year, we identified 85 waterlogging points, and we worked on all of them. That's why most of these places did not experience waterlogging yesterday. However, some new locations emerged. Since construction work is constantly ongoing in the municipal corporation, things get disrupted at times. In the future, we will formulate strategies to work on both old and new waterlogging points. We are also laying stormwater lines in several areas, which will provide relief from waterlogging in those regions," said Commissioner Verma.

On Sunday, IMC received reports of over 100 tree-falling incidents. "The noteworthy point regarding waterlogging was that the water drained from the designated areas within the expected timeframe. In some places, IMC, however, had to manually open our drainage lines and tapping to remove the water," the senior officials said.

Similarly, the electricity department has planned soon starting pre-monsoon maintenance works, including trimming trees from power lines, finding faults, and carrying out some other works before the rainy days arrive. According to the senior officials, hundreds of electricity department employees and officers worked continuously from Sunday evening until the early hours of Monday to normalise the power supply that was disrupted due to the severe weather changes on Sunday afternoon.

During this period, faults in 80 to 90 feeders were rectified, and more than four thousand individual complaints were resolved, they said.