No cleaning of drains, sewerage despite looming monsoon.

GUJRAT -- The administration has not launched desilting of storm water drains and choked sewerage in the city while there is forecast for the pre-monsoon rains.

The citizens have expressed concerns over water accumulation on almost all the city roads after a short rain of a few minutes on Sunday night, causing inconvenience to the people.

The cleaning of drains and sewerage has been a regular feature ahead of the monsoon to reduce the possible damage caused by urban flooding, said a former elected representative of the municipal corporation.

He added that the metropolitan corporation could not launch desilting due to lack of planning and negligence.

The city has been known for having a major problem of drainage of rainwater since long and successive governments of different political parties could not fix the problem despite spending huge funds on it.

The PML-Q had got Rs1bn approved for sewerage schemes in the city and Rs250m were allocated in the current fiscal year; however, execution of the project was not even launched.

Similarly, the local authorities had pinned high hopes on a storm water pipeline project of 50 cusecs from Jail Chowk to Hailsey storm water channel...