Kolkata: Vast areas of North Kolkata were inundated following pre-monsoon showers that hit the city on Saturday afternoon.
Traffic movement was badly affected and people were greatly inconvenienced as there was ankle-deep to knee-deep water in some important thoroughfares. Senior officials of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said all the pumps to clear accumulated water have been kept ready. Tarak Singh, Member, Mayor-in-Council (drainage) said the accumulated water will be soon cleared.
Heavy showers hit North Kolkata around 12.30 pm. A portion of Chittaranjan Avenue was water-logged. Vast areas surrounding Thanthania was under knee-deep water resulting in traffic jams in North and Central Kolkata. Cars standing bumper to bumper were seen on CR Avenue, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Amherst Street and Strand Road. Additional police personnel were deployed to manage traffic. The cops diverted north-bound traffic along CR Avenue via Vivekananda Road. The traffic snarls were caused by slow movement of vehicles due to inundation of the roads. "The depth of water was not much but because of water-logging, the vehicles could not move fast. There was water-logging on almost all the important roads along with the lanes and bylanes in North Kolkata," said a senior police officer.
The rainfall was more in North and Central Kolkata than in South or East Kolkata.
The rainfall recorded at the pumping stations of KMC show that Manicktala had recorded 33 mm rainfall till 3 pm while Patuli, situated in the southern fringes and Ballygunge pumping station recorded 5.59 mm and 4.48 mm rainfall respectively during that period. The northern fringes also received heavy showers with Ratan Babur ghat pumping station recording 1,753 mm rainfall up to 3 pm and Ultadanga showing 14.99 mm rainfall during that period. However, the water receded from all the roads by 6 pm. A high-level meeting between state Irrigation and Waterways minister Soumen Mahapatra and Mayor Sovan Chatterjee was held on Friday where the two took a stock of the arrangements that have been made to combat monsoon.
Tarak Singh said de-silting operations have been carried out and the heavy duty pumps along with the standby ones have been kept ready. Senior civic officials are visiting the pumping stations and are carrying out inspections on a regular basis. He said even if it rains heavily during monsoon, the duration of water-logging will be less because of the measures taken by the KMC.