Bengaluru is one of the gifted cities, looking at its topography. The city is located over 900 metres above the mean sea level. I wonder why the city's administration is struggling to drain off its rainwater.
The BBMP, which manages the city's drains, has got its basics wrong. Throughout the city, roadside drainage system which is made up of box shaped drains is followed. Along the length of the roads we see box shaped drains which do not facilitate water to flow easily.
Building such drains is a big scam in the making. The contract for digging box-shaped drains is allotted to one, another to apply concrete, yet another to lay slabs over the drains and one more for desilting. It is an annual exercise to make big money out of these projects.
All these can be eliminated if the box shaped drains are replaced with interlinked-pipes laid below 5 feet from the ground. All we need to do is to provide needed inlets for rainwater to enter at regular intervals throughout the road and with the help of pipes direct rainwater into valleys in the city.
We need not depend on Cauvery if this project becomes a reality. Rainwater through pipes can be diverted to lakes and parks by forming huge tanks from where it can be reused for various purposes. Also there will be no problem of cleaning the drains, as chambers made at regular intervals will help us remove silt and other unwanted garbage.
If this plan becomes a reality, we will not see the city we love getting flooded as water keeps flowing. We can even make arrangements for excess water to soak into the ground by making soak pits below the pipes at regular intervals. Once we prevent flooding, roads do not get damaged so frequently.
The author, Saurav Babu, is a software engineer from the United States. He came live on Facebook along with Kannada film actor Upendra and presented his plan to save Bengaluru from flooding in future.
