Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation says help flood victims in monsoon or face punishments

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has asked its private entities to be cooperative towards the flood victims. In one of its directions, it has stated it clearly that the private transport and food services, which are found not aiding citizens in distress in the coming monsoon season, will be liable to receive punishments. The punishments will be as per the Disaster Management (DM) Act.

The punishments to be imparted under the DM act can lead to imprisonment up to one year. Such punishments are for those people who deny helping the flood victims. However, if such private entity’s denial for help leads to the loss of life, there can be imprisonment for up to two years.

The penalty to be charged on the defaulters is not fixed yet. The civic body is responsible for deciding it as it has been authorised by the district disaster management authority formed under the act. The fine amount will be decided by the authority headed by an additional municipal commissioner once and when a notice will be issued to the private entity.

Before this, the BMC took the decision of activating its evacuation plan for flooding-prone spots. As per this plan, the civic body will predict water logging at chronic flooding spots in advance of at least two hours. Accordingly, warning messages will also be sent to the local residents and commuters via corporators, advanced locality management groups (ALMs) and police stations. The residents of the particular areas will be warned to evacuate their houses and rush to the civic shelter.

As other actions taken for the flood victims in the forthcoming monsoon, the BMC is mapping convenient transport and food services near ten such chronic flooding spots for people on a pilot basis.

A senior civic official from the DM department said, “These are private transport services in most cases, along with BEST buses. And the food services are mostly non-governmental organisations or food joints. If we need to activate our evacuation plan in any flooding-prone spot, these private entities will be alerted about their job. We will invoke the act to make them comply if they do not agree.”

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