Cuttack, June 18: Anticipating heavy rain in the next couple of days following the cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal, the municipal corporation has decided to clear blockages in the main drainage channels.

The move comes after the ill-preparedness of the corporation was exposed after several localities were waterlogged in the first spell heavy rain on June 15 and 16.

In a bid to address basic issues, the civic body has decided to set up an integrated control room for effective monitoring and tackling of the waterlogging in the city. The integrated control room will act as a co-ordination centre for the civic officials, sanitary staff members and others for better supervision.

According to plan, Global Position System (GPS) will be installed on 100 high-power pump sets that were procured early this year. The move will ensure online tracking of the pump sets, hours of operation and fuel consumption.

The 91 motor pumps of 24 HP, 10 HP and 5 HP capacities have been procured from USA at an estimated cost of Rs 4.5 crore.

The 24 HP pumps can discharge around 5,000 litres of water a minute while the machine can function continuously for almost 17 hours. Each pump will consume nearly between 5 and 5.5 litres of diesel every hour and can flush out solid particles with a pumping capacity of 50mm.

"The integrated control room will function round the clock and all the senior officials, junior and senior engineers will work jointly to deal with any kind of waterlogging. The control room will start functioning from next week," said Gyana Das, commissioner of Cuttack Municipal Corporation.

Sources said that the civic body's decision to installed GPS on motor pumps will put a check on sabotage or theft of motor pumps from the 12 pumping stations that have been set up to prevent waterlogging in different parts of the city. Das said that had been decided to use the pump sets much before the rains so that there is adequate space in the existing drainage channels to ensure fast disposal of rain water.

Apart from this, the civic body will undertake a massive exercise to clear blockages at two major points in the main storm water channel for free flow of excess rain water.

At present the point at Matrubhavan sluice gate and the main culvert near Christ College are choked with silt and garbage, which might create problems in the discharge of storm water.

There are also blockages at two points in the main storm water channel No. 2 due to the ongoing construction work for the integrated sanitation project undertaken by Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica).

The existing blockages in the main storm water channel No. 2 are at Andarpur and Gosala and the civic body has asked the Jica for their immediate clearance.

"We will be taking up silt and garbage removal at the two blocked points on channel No. 1 on Sunday while the blockages in channel No. 2 at Andarpur and near Samrat Talkies have been removed," Das said.