Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation identifies pre-monsoon disaster preparation plan

AHMEDABAD: The municipal corporation has begun warning citizens that many sites that it had dug up recently to lay civic lines may be prone to cave-ins during the monsoon.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), as part of its pre-monsoon plan, has identified 45 sites in the city that could witness cave-ins. The AMC has decided that warning signs will be installed in these places.

Sources in the AMC said during a meeting for the pre-monsoon preparation plan, officials and the political wing discussed the condition of roads and found that there were 45 stretches of road in the city where a lot of digging has taken place and which are at risk of caving-in during the monsoon.

The civic body will also set up 19 control rooms to attend to complaints during the monsoon. It will collect rainfall data using 26 wireless rain gauge systems, and control rooms will be connected with 48 walkie talkie sets.

The AMC will also watch for waterlogging with 2,559 CCTV cameras, including those of the police department installed under the smart city project.

The AMC has also identified 115 spots that are prone to waterlogging.

Now, as it has done in previous years, the AMC has promised to employ new methods in laying and repairing underground utilities, claiming they will guarantee “no cave-ins” for two decades.

These two methods involve the cured in place pipe lining (CIPP) and the glass reinforced plastic pipe (GRP).

The AMC will spend Rs 248.4 crore for restoration of nine major drainage trunk lines in the eastern part of the city.

Last year, nearly 100 cave-ins took place in the city. Interestingly, the AMC has set the defect liability period — the guarantee period for contractors — at 20 years for the restoration of these trunk lines.

The AMC has been blaming the four-decade-old drainage lines in the eastern part of the city for most cave-ins.

During the monsoon last year — that is between July 10 and September 15 — the AMC had reported 92 cave-ins, spending crores behind their repairs. Most of these cave-ins were because of collapsing civic lines.