Bengaluru, 11/9:From financial indiscipline, shoddy mapping of major drains, failing to clear encroachments to making unfruitful expenditure on sewage diversion and ‘misplacing’ documents related to various projects, the recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the BBMP’s stormwater drain (SWD) department exposed all that’s wrong with the system.
While the performance audit report by a premier organisation has been gathering dust with no seriousness to implement the recommendations, a large part of Bengaluru, particularly the IT corridor, has been bearing the brunt of the BBMP’s insensitive and lackadaisical attitude.
The CAG’s 2021 report found that the SWD department neither had a robust policy governing stormwater management nor prepared a manual specifying the design, construction and maintenance of SWD infrastructure of the city. “It failed to factor in reasons for high-intensity rainfall due to rapid urbanisation… Groundwater recharge structures were not taken up due to the flow of sewage in SWDs. Water bodies and drains were not inter-connected and linkage between different drains was absent,” the report states