Photo: PTI

HOMAGE: College students and teachers join a silent prayer to remember the lives lost in last year's deluge and recent blasts, in Mumbai on Wednesday.

MUMBAI: On the first anniversary of the July 26 deluge, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh announced that the Centre had agreed to approve the long-pending upgradation of Mumbai's storm water drains. The Centre had given its nod for the first phase of the project and Rs. 475 crores would be released soon so that work could be speeded up.

The Rs. 1,800 crore project to upgrade Mumbai's nearly 100-year-old drainage system was all the more necessary after last year's floods, which choked the city. Mr. Deshmukh, who was in New Delhi for the last couple of days, said the Centre had agreed to give approval to BRIMSTOWAD (Brihan Mumbai Storm Water Drainage Project) as a separate project. Funds for the metro railway have also been approved in principle, he said.

Further, in response to the State's request, the Prime Minister had agreed not to include both BRIMSTOWAD and the Metro railway project under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and keep them as separate projects. This would ensure they were entitled to more funding from the Centre and reduce the burden on the State, he said.

To be speeded up

Thanks to this, work on both the storm water drains and the metro would be speeded up and should begin after the monsoon, he said.

Under the Urban Renewal Mission, the Centre gives 35 per cent of the sanctioned cost as grant, 15 per cent comes from the State Government and the urban local body has to contribute 50 per cent. Now the complete funding is expected from the Centre.

Work has been under way on improving the drainage system but the progress has been slow due to lack of funds. The project will be carried out in three phases over three years.

Mr. Deshmukh said that in the last one year, there were a lot of improvements in the city and the Mithi river was cleaned up. Even though there was heavy rain earlier this month, the situation did not go out of hand.

He said there was better coordination among various agencies such as the police, the fire brigade and the civic authorities and information was also readily being given on issues of public importance.

Even though there was flooding in some parts of the city, the damage was restricted, he pointed out.

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