East Singhbhum Deputy Commissioner Amitabh Kaushal has asked the local urban bodies — Jamshedpur and Mango Notified Area Committees and Jugsalai Municipality — to take immediate steps and clean the drains before June 15. The order has been issued in view of the Monsoon season, which is expected to hit the State by June 20.
Officials informed that the urban bodies have started taking steps to deal with the waterlogging in the city. As per the plans, the urban bodies will be outsourcing the cleaning of big drains (depth of more than four feet) to private parties in order to overcome its manpower shortage while smaller drains will be cleaned regularly by its own staff on a roster basis.
The city has nearly 40 big drains out of which 15 have effluents of companies passing through it. There are nearly 150 small drains in different localities of the city.
The DC directed the officials of various departments to carry out the cleanliness drive in the localities, culverts, drains in other parts of the city. He also ordered that the low-lying areas, situated close to the Swarnarekha and Kharkai rivers, should be earmarked so that preventive action may be taken in case of heavy rain and flooding.
Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) special officer Dipak Sahay said that the tenders for cleaning nearly 14 big drains has been completed. Tata Steel subsidiary, Jusco, have also been approached to clean the big drains before Monsoon.
“We have been asked to take immediate preventive measures or face the music from the administration. Every year Monsoon, coupled with hailstorm, creates havoc in the city with overflowing drains that leads to water clogging,” said an official.
The JNAC is entrusted with the upkeep of the civic amenities in urban slums outside Tata Steel command area for a populace of over five lakh. JNAC has a cleaning staff of 70 and take 20 more on ad-hoc basis to step up the cleaning of small drains.
The district administration also mulled launching a special awareness campaign through pamphlets among the locals explaining them about the symptoms of the vector borne diseases and steps to prevent it but there's no such campaign visible in the district, thus far.