Residents of Niladri Vihar in Bhubaneswar suffer due to heavy waterlogging during rains. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 4: Parts of Niladri Vihar are facing a flood-like situation with water entering several houses behind Amruta Mandap and people living in knee-deep water inside the colony.

“Water is flowing at the level of the windows of ground floors of many houses. People are virtually living on their cots and even cooking there. Many of them are living on rooftops as the indoor areas remain submerged in rainwater. More than 500 people of the area have been suffering from this artificial problem for the last five years. But sadly, the problem is yet to be addressed. I have constructed a sluice gate-like structure myself near the entrance of my house to stop rainwater from coming inside. But due to the incessant rainfall coupled with low pressure over last week, it has become difficult to manage the fury of the gushing water,’’ said Maheswar Nanda, a retired state government employee.

Residents of Niladri Vihar have to erect an extra gate or wall at their entrance to stop floodwater from entering into their house. They said that the floodwater, which comes to their side from Sailashree Vihar, could be channelised with construction of a drain so that it could go down straight to natural drainage channel No. 1. City engineer T.B.K. Shroff said: “Members of the engineering wing have already visited the spot and identified encroached portions that block the flow of the water. A nearby community centre is also encroaching upon the passage of the water flow. We are going to construct a drain to channelise the water flow so that it can easily pass to the nearest drainage channel.’’

Local councillor Nirupama Jena added: “We have informed the higher authorities of the situation. This year, diversion of water from the upper catchment of the area will be channelised through construction of a separate channel to make the area free from waterlogging.’’

“We have been crying for help and the authorities have been giving us false promises year after year. Even last week, the mayor visited the spot and was briefed about the problem by engineers of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation. We can only get a relief if a drain comes up here for diversion of floodwater,’’ said another local resident and social activist S.S. Swain.

“The drainage of flood water in secondary, tertiary and drainage channels is suffering a lot as many passages have been encroached upon in the city. Last June, the situation at Acharya Vihar became serious as floodwater coming through drainage channel No. 4 could not get enough exit passage,’’ said Swain.