We the Kolkattans with short civic memory – though skeptical in many areas, and rightly so – are easily taken in by the suave talks of KMC. Each year the rains create havoc in the city several times during monsoon, throwing life out of gear on each occasion.
And each year after the monsoon passes, we are tricked into believing KMC that the coming year would bring respite like never before. But that respite never happens.
Last year’s monsoon brought out flurry of promises from KMC including de-silting of century-old brick sewer in the heart of the city. This was a new addition to the usual ones like installing more booster pumps, cleaning the waterways that crisscross the city, and so on.
The icing on the promise-cake was that after a long while apparently KMC was not short of funds. After all it’s selling the dilapidated markets it owns like hot cakes, so much so that it now plans to fully air-condition the century-old HQ on SN Banerjee Road.
Looking at all these things, feeling proud that the city’s municipal watchdog is sprucing up its image, even letting it out of mind that not long back the KMC faced a fund-collection fiasco at its Gariahat office forcing people this year into unnecessary inconvenience while paying the property tax, the city’s dwellers thought may be this monsoon it would be different.
Perhaps this year we’d be able to bid goodbye to water logging, a nagging annual occurrence that has been happening for as long as one remembers.
But no, that is not to be. Yesterday’s deluge in the morning has washed out any such dreams one dared to harbor. The wading through waist-deep murky waters has come back to haunt us. Yet again.
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