KMC to upgrade civic amenities

Stung by criticism over the near debacle of civil amenities after Aila, the cyclonic storm which killed hundreds of people and rendered thousands homeless in West Bengal, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has woken up to modernise its infrastructure.

However, the investment in improving drainage sewerage facilities alone would require close to Rs 20,000 crore, said Alapan Bandhopadhyay, commissioner, KMC, at an interactive session organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Kolkata on Friday.

KMC, which owns land in some of the prime locations in the city, earned about Rs 1,000 crore by leasing out land last year.

 

This apart, it owns about Rs 1,200 crore as fixed deposits assets with banks.

So far the corporation has been able to mobilise about Rs 2,500 crore for drainage improvement, mostly through internal accruals, and a Rs 2,500 crore loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) was awaited, he said.

“A situation in which some 1,500 trees got uprooted in about two hours is unprecedented. We have learnt some lessons out of it, and we need to upgrade storm-related disaster management apparatus,” said Bandhopadhyay, adding that the drainage facilities were likely to improve in the next five years.

The key problem which the engineers face in renovating the drainage facility is the unavailability of maps, and lack of knowledge about the underground architect of the drainage system.

“We need capital intensive technologies to improve the drainage system, and the several Australian and German companies are already working in this regard,” he said.

Under the Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP), the KMC has launched a wide range of infrastructure development projects, including improvement of sewerage facilities.

The corporation has also developed a capacity building programme (CBP) to bring about holistic improvement in internal operations, with a focus on efficiency enhancement and social improvement.