THANE:
The civic Health Department (HD) has commenced
work for the cleanliness of the entire nallah
system in the city since the past couple of
days. The step has laid to rest the apprehensions
that the task would be caught up in the model
Code of Conduct guidelines currently in force
in the wake of the parliamentary elections.
Dr
Balaji Haldikar, the Health Officer (HO) TMC
informed Thane Plus that his department took
up the task recently. "We finalised nine
different agencies for the task and some of
the agencies have commenced the work as well,"
he said adding that, the remaining agencies
would also begin the work of cleaning of nallahs
and storm water drains within a day or two.
The
official further claimed that the nallah cleaning
work had been initiated at nine different places
at the level of one in each of the nine ward
councils. The agencies have been directed to
report the progress of the work to the department
on a day to day basis from Monday onwards. This
has been done to cope up with the civic Disaster
Management Action Plan (DMAP) which is likely
to get underway from Monday onwards.
Notably,
the civic administration did not take up the
usual route of calling of tenders for the purpose
as the process was set to get caught up in the
poll related guidelines in force till May 20.
The process involves clearance of the General
body (GB) and Standing Committee Houses and
the houses attract provisions of the poll guidelines.
"Nallah
cleaning is a routine civic work and such works
do not attract poll-related guidelines,"
Dr Balaji stressed. He said that it was an essential
pre-monsoon task to keep the city moving during
the time of rains. He informed that choked up
nallah system could spell disaster for the entire
city.
The
civic health officer further claimed that around
85-kilomtre collective length of the city's
major nallahs would be de silted and cleaned
up under the process. Besides this the roughly
500-kilometre of the storm water drains situated
on either side of the city roads would also
be cleaned up thoroughly by the selected agencies
on a war footing.
The
HD authorities would closely monitor the nallah
cleaning work on a day to day basis from Monday
onwards and would report the progress to the
civic commissioner. The department would ensure
that the filthy task is completed satisfactorily
by the end of this month or the first week of
next month before the season of rains arrives.
It
may be noted that every year the corporation
spends crores of rupees on the pre monsoon clearance
of choked up nallahs and storm water drains
to ensure free flow of rain waters. Still the
system partly or fully collapses during the
rainy season particularly during the time of
heavy showers.
courtesy:www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com
