Residents of Madan Mohan Burman Street and its adjoining areas can finally look forward to spending monsoon without being waterlogged, something they have never experienced in the past 60 years.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has resolved to undertake a “bypass surgery” that will redirect accumulated water to the west of Bidhan Sarani before pumping it into Canal South.

“It will be a sort of bypass surgery on the 36-inch diameter brick sewer running east to west under Madan Mohan Burman Street,” said municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay. “Before the sewage from the west of Bidhan Sarani reaches the bottleneck point, it will be channelised through a one-km pipeline to a sump pit below Vivekananda Road and then pumped out into South Canal.”

The project will cost Rs 3 crore and take around four months to complete. The authorities are eyeing a pre-monsoon deadline, said mayor Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharyya.

A group of civic engineers, led by Supriya Chandra, has just finished a survey that started in November and submitted a report, rooting for the “bypass” solution to the water woes.

Civic chief engineer (civil) P.K. Dhua said the “bypass line” will be laid under the western pavement of Bidhan Sarani and a 72,000 gallon-per-hour capacity pump installed at Marcus Square to drain run-off water into Canal South, off Maniktala.

Elaborating on the genesis of the problem, a civic official said a 30-inch-diameter water mains, running north to south under Bidhan Sarani, intersects the 36-inch sewer line, reducing its width at the junction to a mere six inch. As a result, subsidiary sewers to the west of Bidhan Sarani cannot empty its load into the main conduit, resulting in waterlogging after heavy shower.