Not much has changed for Madhumalati Awas and the areas surrounding it in Kathwada area of Ahmedabad. In 2017, water had overflowed and waterlogged Madhumalati Awas. In lieu of that, rescue boats and disaster response teams were positioned by the state government to rescue residents. Flood waters stayed stagnant there for about four days then, forcing the then chief minister Vijay Rupani to travel in a boat to meet the residents.
It has been five years hence, and despite the Rs 20 crore stormwater line that was laid by Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to divert the stormwater to the nearby Singarva Lake, the situation remains the same. This year rain again led to waterlogging, flooding the Nikol areas.
The reason behind this flooding is that while the capacity of the lake as of now is 27 crore litres, 52 crore litres of stormwater seeped into it this year. To curb that, AUDA plans to put down an additional line of Rs 24 crore to direct the stormwater into the nearby Khari stream.
An Auda official explained that post the 2017 floods, contractor Svetsom Construction had laid a stormwater line from Kathwada area from under the national highway towards Singarva lake. The Kathwada area was then under AUDA. A different rainwater harvesting reservoir was also installed near the lake site in T. And besides all of this, AMC had put down a 1200 mm wide stormwater line covering Kathwada and some parts of Odhav to direct stormwater into Singarva Lake. The lake which had the capacity of 27 crore, was inundated with 52 crore litres of water this year. Seeing this, Auda had decided to spend an additional Rs 24 crore on 4.5 km of stormwater to direct water into the Khari stream.
