Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) & IIT Roorkee today signed an MoU for the preparation of Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan, Vision-2050.
Hon’ble Minister Housing & Urban Development Department, Govt. of Odisha, PE Dept., Dr. Krushna Chandra Mahapatra, Hon’ble Mayor Smt. Sulochana Das, BMC Commissioner Shri Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, IAS VC BDA Dr. N. Thirumala Naik, IAS, Executive Director OSDMA Dr. Kamal Lochan Mishra, IAS, Director IIT Roorkee, Prof K.K Pant, Dean SRIC IIT Roorkee Prof. Akshay Dvivedi, Sanitation Standing Committee Chairperson Shri Biranchi Narayan Mahasupakar, City Engineer Shri Bilash Kumar Behera were present on the dais.
Benefits of the Comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan-The urban flooding problem may be addressed using short-term interventions that will help BMC immediately. However, the storm water management plan will address the current flood scenarios, the plan shall future-proof the city’s stormwater management based on the projected populations and the hydro-climatology for 2050.
Bhubaneswar is topographically divided into western uplands and eastern lowlands, with hillocks in its western and northern parts. Although, sadly every year, during monsoon season, the city is facing flood and storm water related issues affecting people’s lives due to torrential rain. As a result, this causes waterlogging for hours in multiple low-lying areas of the capital city including slums. Even the traffic gets disrupted. The service roads of NH-16 at few places become problematic for commuters.
Hence, our Government aims to focus on quality urban life and develop the city into a liveable world class city.Keeping in view the same, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation(BMC) has reached out to IIT Roorkee to utilise their expertise in preparing the Master Plan and DPR with cost estimates for a climate-smart drainage system to manage the urban flooding in the city.
So, due to urbanisation and construction of roads and flyovers; the hydrological regime has been changed over the years. Therefore, it requires a fresh, comprehensive Stormwater Drainage Master Plan along with the Detailed Project Report (DPR) to keep the city in complete readiness to meet any such eventualities in future.
IIT Roorkee will prepare a comprehensive Drainage Master Plan and the DPR considering the urban flooding problems in a holistic manner to offer an integrated solution to the Stormwater Management of the entire city covering almost 256 sq.km. area by next one year time. There will be a short-term plan along with a long-term Master Plan by IIT Roorkee based on the projected land use, population and the hydro-climatology as prescribed by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Govt. of India.
BMC will start acting upon the plans with immediate effect to overcome the long-lasting issues and flooding problems, which will finally benefit the citizens of our capital city.
MoU was Singed by Shri. Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, Commissioner, BMC and Prof Akshay Dvivedi,Dean SRIC, IIT Roorkee. This climate resilient and future-proof city Stormwater Drainage Master Plan and the Detailed Project Report has a project cost of Rs. 8.04 Crores plus taxes.
On the occasion, team BMC, Corporators, line department Engineers, team IIT Roorkee were present along with corporation body members.
