A short spell of rain on Thursday once again exposed the failure of the Tarbha Notified Area Council (Tarbha NAC) to carry out desilting of drains across town.
While the civic body has claimed to have prepared for monsoon, roads and low lying areas of town were submerged in rain water. As a result, the residents continue to face problems due to waterlogging in hospital road, which is the main market road of Tarbha town and busiest because, another Nuapada road is out of use because of being dugged up for more than six months for pipelines laying. The people in these localities either have to hop and skip over water logged spots or have to gingerly walk over slushy mess.
Though the rain water receded after several hours, the sludge and garbage left on the roads posed serious problems for the commuters. The Police station road, a major thoroughfare of the town also remained covered with garbage and rain water. Residents allege that drains continue to be clogged as the civic authorities are yet to initiate desilting process.
Although in this road there is no proper drainage system, dirty water entered several shops and houses in low lying areas, they added.
Locals said the water logging is a common phenomenon in the road whenever it rains, irrespective of the duration of the rainfall, but unfortunately the NAC is doing little to mitigate the owe.
Several complaints with the civic authorities in this connection have been lodged in the past but the problem persists.
While contacted, Tarbha Citizen Committee secretary Rabindra Thakur said that due to no drainage system and lack of maintenance of road, every rainy season water is going on the road which looks like an artificial pond near the hospital. Former NAC Chairman cum advocate Adikanda Panigrahi said drainage system is a complete failure in every ward of the Tarbha town. "I have clear doubt on the awards of Swachha Bharat NAC and Best NAC Chairman 2017 which Tarbha NAC has got as there has been no development of NAC in the last five years," said Panigrahi. Meanwhile, locals demanded a Vigilance inquiry regarding the development in the last five years in the NAC.