Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has reported that its six major pumping stations commissioned after the 2005 deluge have collectively pumped out 1,645.155 crore litres (16,451.55 million litres) of water over the past four days.
Irla tops with highest extraction
Among them, the Irla pumping station, located in Juhu, recorded the highest volume, having alone extracted 3,768.48 million litres (ML) of water during this period.
BRIMSTOWAD project post-2005 deluge
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Following the July 26, 2005 deluge, the BMC initiated the construction of eight pumping stations under the BRIMSTOWAD project, based on the recommendations of the Chitale Committee, to strengthen Mumbai’s stormwater drainage system.
Of these, six stations located at Irla, Haji Ali, Love Grove in Worli, Cleveland in Worli Village, Britannia at Reay road, and Gajdhar Bandh in Santacruz Village have been completed and are fully operational. The remaining two stations, at Mahul and Mogra, are facing delays due to land acquisition issues and pending regulatory clearances.
These pumping stations are designed to remove excess rainwater from the city’s drainage network and discharge it into the sea—particularly during high tide, when floodgates remain closed to prevent seawater from flowing back into the system.
Designed for high tide flooding
These pumping stations house a total of 43 pumps, each with the capacity to extract 6,000 litres of water per second. Collectively, this amounts to a combined pumping capacity of approximately 2.58 lakh litres of water per second.
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Capacity compared to Tulsi Lake
"Mumbai has witnessed extremely heavy rainfall since Friday. Between August 16 and 19, pumping stations across the city removed 16,451.55 ML of water, over twice the capacity of Tulsi Lake, which holds about 804.6 crore litres. Over the four-day period, the pumps collectively operated for a total of 761 hours and 38 minutes," said a civic official of Storm Water Drain department. On Tuesday, the BMC deployed 540 dewatering pumps across Mumbai, which removed 182.5 crore litres of water in just six hours.
