Bhubaneswar: The civic body's drainage division, which performs the best only in constructing drains in the city, however, fails to check rampant encroachments on them.

Rampant encroachments on the drains have triggered fears of urban flooding in the city during monsoon.

The division that had been made operational at the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation's headquarters in May 2016 is entrusted with the job of preparing a drainage master plan, construct new drains and cleaning and repairing old ones, including the natural drainage channels. It is also supposed to check encroachment of drains.

However, it makes a mark only in drain construction that is on in full swing in almost all parts of the city, including Unit-III, Kharavela Nagar, Unit-I, Unit-II, Sampur, GGP Colony, Rasulgarh, Sailasrhee Vihar, Old Town and Patia.

The situation has become worrisome with the anti-enforcement drives being almost nil, facilitating encroachments with street vendors who often find the covered drains, mainly the storm water drainage channels, a perfect place to run business.

The Telegraph traced a few such peripheral drains, where people have constructed multi-storey buildings and are living without any hindrance from civic authorities. Such sites can be found at Lakshmi Sagar, near Delta and Rajdhani Square. The situation is also similar with the drains at Old Town.

"It is often the slum dwellers, who are found encroaching on the drains and running business there. But nowadays, even the middle class people are found violating the norms without any fear. This is not tolerable and the civic body should be condemned for it," said social worker Alok Kar.

The civic authorities undertake periodic enforcement drives to evict the vendors from over the drains, but no attempts are made to check on the illegal construction activities along the drains.

"It is high time the civic authorities take action against encroachers rather than targeting only street vendors. If this continues, we may also face situations like Chennai and Jammu and Kashmir, where urban flooding take alarming proportion," said Acharya Vihar resident Bhagbat Dash.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, while admitting that illegal construction were rampant over the drains, said the drainage division would be strengthened to take on rigorous enforcement drives. "We are in the process of recruiting more people in our drainage division. Once it is done, the division will start working in full swing," said Jena.