Finally, sun shines over city sky

--Woes of six-day rains over

BHUBANESWAR: Finally, after six days’ incessant rains in the city and its outskirts, the sky was cleared of thick clouds with the city dwellers witnessing the much awaited sunshine on Monday. As low pressure area over north coastal Andhra Pradesh grew weak, local Met officials said, climate will be normal from now onwards.

Due to the low pressure, the capital city had witnessed heavy rains during last six days. The incessant rain brought immense hardships for the city dwellers as overflowing drain water gushed into their houses in the low-lying areas, besides creating waterlogging at many places.

The unremitting rain had literally paralysed the city and had forced the residents to stay indoors. Vehicular movement was not thick like normal days. Roads were filled with rain water. Many traffic posts were engulfed with water.

Rain water had entered into various places and colonies of the city including Acharya Vihar, Uni-8, Ram Mandir square, GGP Colony, Satabdi Vihar, Ashok Nagar, Rasulgarh, Laxmisagar, Bomikhal, Station Bazaar square, Cuttack Road and Old Bhubaneswar. Slum areas were badly affected in the heavy rain.

Situation of the villages on the outskirts of the city had faced problems when the rain water entered into the houses. Bharatpur, Kalajhari, Samantarapur and Bangali Sahi in Barang area, apart from Ostapada and Tankapani road witnessed knee-dip water on village roads connecting main roads. Even slum dwellers of Bharatpur under Chandaka police limits had blocked the road protesting local corporators’ carelessness and misbehaviour when they sought steps for draining out of water from the slum area.

City witnessed heavy rainfall starting from October 20 evening to October 27 and received record 568 mm rainfall only within seven days which was the highest rainfall than last year.

Gradually normalcy is returning everywhere as water has been receding, but the problems faced by the city-dwellers exposed the failure of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) in draining out water in a planned way.

Published on October 29, 2013 in The Pioneer front page