BMC schools to shelter you when it pours
As part of disaster management plan, 100 municipal schools to house the dishoused.
Mumbai: NOT LONG after a swollen Mithi river entered Kranti Nagar tenements on Tuesday, construction labourer Vinayak Pethe (32) was sipping hot tea at the neighbouring Bail Bazar Municipal School.
This, when the rest of Mumbai was struggling with rising water levels, traffic snarls and flights that never took off. Giving Pethe company were 2,500-odd people—500 families were evacuated from flooded areas of Kurla—whose feelings of loss were lessened by quick relief and warm food, all provided on the school premises.
‘‘If water enters our houses, we can do very little to save our belongings,’’ said Pethe. ‘‘At least, we are not stranded and hungry.’’
Part of the civic body’s disaster management plan enlisting 100 of its schools as shelter spots for rain-hit Mumbaiites, the dole continued on Wednesday morning too.
So, while they were closed for students, the school gates opened for 4,000-odd people on Tuesday. In the western suburbs, around 500 people were shifted to nearby civic schools from low-lying areas in Andheri, Jogeshwari, Goregaon and Malad.
While many left for their homes once the water receded on Wednesday, a few stayed on at the Bail Bazaar municipal school in Kurla and the Motilal Nagar municipal school in Goregaon.
Officials said they weren’t taking any chances. ‘‘Ward offices are supplied with food grain, caterers are kept just a call away, even doctors are posted in areas,’’ said L Ward Assistant Municipal Commissioner Ashok Khaire.
While 90 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have come forward to assist the civic body in relief work, the civic body is not solely banking on them. ‘‘We’ve deployed Home Guards. Also, administrative officers and health officers in each ward have been asked to be on alert,’’ said Additional Municipal Commissioner (Schools) Vijaysinh Patankar.
pallavi.singh@expressindia.com
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