Cuttack, May 18: The municipal corporation, which conducts an annual project to remove silt from the surface water channels across the city, is racing against time to get the annual exercise done before monsoon.

The India Meteorological Department has already announced that the southwest monsoon is expected to reach Kerala on May 30, two days ahead of its schedule.

The onset of monsoon over Kerala signals arrival of the rainy season in the sub-continent.

The Cuttack Municipal Corporation was supposed to complete the silt removal by the first week of May. Till now, less than 60 per cent of the surface water channels have been cleaned.

However, civic body commissioner Gyanaranjan Das told The Telegraph : "The pre-monsoon silt removal from surface water channels started in April end this year. But, the work is being done on war footing so that it can be over before the end of May."

"To maintain the full outflow capacity, we have already removed silt from over 70 per cent of the major surface water channels," Das said.

The operation covers the entire drainage system of the city consisting of two main storm water channels that stretch up to 25km, a network of 30km of branch drains and 85km of tertiary drains with surface water channels measuring over 600km.

The major storm water channels have an outflow capacity of 75,000 to 80,000 cusecs per hour.

The silt removal is done to maintain the outflow capacity and prevent waterlogging and inundation of homes by overflowing drains during monsoon.

Silt deposit and indiscriminate disposal of solid waste reduce the outflow capacity of main storm water channels by nearly 50 per cent.

The civic body has earmarked Rs 3 crore for the work in the current fiscal. The amount is Rs 1 crore more than the previous fiscal.

"Substandard excavation of silt often leads to overflowing of drains and waterlogging," said Rajabagicha labour colony resident Amlan Badan Pattanaik, 52.

Earlier, there had been complaints about sloppy silt removal by contractors. This forced the civic body authorities to withhold payment of bills of those contractors.

"This year, we decided to continue with mechanical clearing of silt from the water channels even during the monsoon to clean those stretches, where silt load reappear after excavation," Das said.

The corporation's engineering division had also formed monitoring committees to keep watch on the silt removal process.