The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Saturday stated that it had worked on 169 out of 336 flood-prone spots this year. According to officials, 54 of these are localised spots.
The BMC had earlier released 225 spots following heavy rain in August 2017 after a doctor fell into a drain in the city and died. There were 47 new spots identified in 2018. Some major low lying spots in the city are in Geeta Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Parel TT, Gandhi market, Shell colony in Tilak Nagar, Mankhurd subway, Milan subway, Andheri-Kurla road, Gandhi Nagar and Usha Nagar in Bhandup.
Even though officials had stated that they were prepared for the monsoons in Mumbai, corporators believe that the incessant rain could bring the city to a standstill. The BMC had earlier been completely occupied with its fight against the coronavirus. With the advent of monsoons, the civic body has to fully prepare itself as the monsoons give rise to cases of dengue, malaria and leptospirosis along with causing floods and waterlogging.
There have been ongoing studies that have sparked theories about the impact of weather on the novel coronavirus. Doctors have opined that the intersection of monsoon with the coronavirus in Mumbai will make it harder to enforce social-distancing norms and carry out contact-tracing in flooded low-lying areas.
Civic officials, however, in the past, have said that the shortage of manpower is its biggest worry as all free hands have gone into dealing with COVID-19. The preoccupation with the novel coronavirus has further impacted the essential pre-monsoon civil work. The insecticide department had earlier started its work against vector-borne dengue and malaria and bacterial infection leptospirosis. Another big worry amongst the officials is the flooding of slums during the monsoons. As these slums are also the hotbed for the coronavirus, occurrence of flooding in these areas can further worsen the situation.
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