Muharram holiday in Bhubaneswar cancelled after cyclone, heavy rainfall warning

BHUBANESWAR: In the wake of IMD warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall in Khurda and in and around the city limits, Bhubaneswar municipal corporation (BMC) has cancelled the Muharram holiday for its employees on Friday and already starts the multi-agency control room to manage urban flooding and water-logging in low-lying areas across the city.
The weather forecast said a depression over west-central and adjoining east-central Bay of Bengal, which is likely to be intensified into a cyclonic storm during the coming hours, will cause heavy rainfall across west, north-west and south Odisha.In view of this, the civic body has taken a slew of measures to tackle the waterlogging or flooding problems in the capital.
Manpower is needed to address the problems of the city residents during water-logging and urban flooding. So the BMC cancelled the holiday to help the city residents, said a senior BMC officer.
Since July this year, the civic body has cancelled four public holidays (including September 21) so far to fight water logging situation in the city and manning the Multi Agency Control Room in BMC with the help of other line departments like Odisha fire services, works, public health engineering organisation (PHEO), Bhubaneswar development authority (BDA) and water resources.
The BMC has opened the control room since August 13 for a better coordination and control of urban flooding and dewatering of water-logged areas.
Srimanta Mishra, BMC deputy commissioner, said they have received five complaints on Thursday through online and storm water control room. “While four online complaints were received through the Bhubaneswar Operations Centre, the Storm Water Control Room received one complaint,” he added.
He said residents are encouraged to file online complaints through 18003450061. The Storm Water Control Room in BMC receives complaint on 0674-2432281. Thirteen teams across 13 sub-zones were deployed to monitor the situation across the city in 67 wards. BMC's 40 engineers were on high alert to manage any kind of situation due to heavy rainfall.
On Thursday, seven fire services pumps were deployed at six locations- Ratna Villa, Paika Nagar , Gouri Nagar, Gouri Garden, Jaydev Vihar (Corporation bank) and Gouri Shankar English Medium School.a
Similarly, six BMC pumps were deployed at six locations. They were Mallick Complex, Paika Nagar, Nilakantheswar Temple, Garage Chhak Sai Temple, Nuagaon Main Road and Pahala Rudrapur.