By IANS,
Mumbai : Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday allocated Rs.500 crore to the Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drainage Project designed to control floods in the city during monsoon.
The Rs.1,200-crore project, entirely funded by the central government, was sanctioned Rs.500 crore last fiscal.
While Mukherjee had allocated Rs.200 crore in the interim budget presented earlier this year, the allocation has now been enhanced to Rs.500 million – leaving a shortfall of Rs.2 billion.
The Brihanmumbai project aims to replace the existing drainage system of Mumbai, which was constructed over 225 km nearly 90 years ago, and which can handle rainfall of an intensity of only 25 mm per hour.
Under the Brihanmumbai project, the drainage system would be enhanced by using large diameter pipes, capable of draining 50 mm rainfall per hour using pumps wherever necessary, and removing over 20,000 slums that have come up in and around the vicinity of the drains.
When originally conceived in 1993, the project was estimated to cost Rs.600 crore.
The state and the central governments took up the Brihanmumbai project seriously after the Mumbai floods of July 26, 2005.
The city, which had then experienced the century’s highest rainfall in a single day, had been completely paralysed for three days, many lives were lost and property worth billions of rupees was damaged or destroyed.