Mysuru: The government will be spending Rs 800 crore to fix 350km out of 850km of storm-water drains in Bengaluru, said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
“The existing drainage system and storm-water drains were not able to withstand the pressure, that’s the reason we are seeing lots of problems. The previous government didn’t take up the development of storm-water drains. Hence, our government in keeping with the interest of people, has decided to take up the repairs of 350km of storm-water drains by spending Rs 800 crore. Later next year we will develop the remaining 500km of storm-water drains. During the developmental work of storm-water drains, all the encroachments, illegal buildings and silt will be removed. In Mysuru also we will take up development of storm-water drains”.
He said that it is really unfortunate that the politicians, especially the opposition leaders, are playing petty politics on these issues. He claimed that, the previous governments led by Chief Minister Yeddyurappa, Sadananda Gowda, Jagadish Shettar didn’t give much importance to the storm-water drains, but now they choose to falsely claim that they had developed these drains. “If really they had done any developmental works towards the storm-water drains let them prove by producing documents” added Siddaramaiah.
The rain in the past few weeks exposed the bad conditions of the Bengaluru city’s 850km storm-water drain network. Due to a reduction in carrying capacity, there were reports of stagnation of water on the roads as well as flooding in several areas across Bengaluru. The BBMPs failure to chalk out plans and construction of storm-water drains to keep up with the growing population and expansion of the city is the main reason for the flooding seen in most of the areas in Bengaluru.
When media personnel asked the CM if the Karnataka Government would also appoint dalit priests to its temple like Kerala has recently done, he said that they were not opposed to the idea and that they would also be taking a similar step.
