The Panvel Municipal Corporation’s standing committee has approved a Rs 77 crore tender for a gate pumping station at Kalamboli’s holding pond, even as questions have been raised over the need for the expenditure after recent drainage measures reportedly reduced waterlogging in the suburb.
The approval was granted at the committee’s meeting on Tuesday. Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray) group leader Leena Garad questioned whether such a large investment was necessary when Kalamboli had not experienced flood-like conditions over the past two years, according to the report by Loksatta – Navi Mumbai.
Kalamboli is particularly vulnerable to water accumulation during the monsoon because of its geographical structure. In response, the municipal corporation has intensified the cleaning of stormwater drains and increased the number of high-capacity water pumps used during heavy rainfall. The civic administration has also spent approximately Rs 1.25 crore on rented pumps, and has claimed that these measures reduced waterlogging incidents in the area over the past two years.
The proposed pumping station is linked to a larger flood-management system developed by the City and Industrial Development Corporation, or CIDCO. A holding pond was created beside the Kalamboli settlement, reportedly drawing on Dutch flood-management methods. The pond covers 358,670 square metres and is approximately five metres deep.
The system was designed to hold up to 1.8 million cubic metres of rainwater during extreme rainfall. Under the planned arrangement, rainwater would first accumulate in the holding pond before the flow towards Kalamboli increases, helping to reduce pressure on the suburb’s drainage network.
However, the pond has accumulated substantial silt over several years. The municipal corporation has planned an expenditure of Rs 20 crore for desilting, and approval for the cleaning work has reportedly been obtained from the environment department. The decision to prioritise the gate pump project before completing the desilting has become the central point of the current dispute.
The two projects address different parts of the same drainage system. Desilting would restore the holding pond’s water-storage capacity, while the proposed gate pumping station would be intended to regulate or remove water from the facility. The civic body’s sequencing of these works will therefore determine how quickly the broader flood-management system becomes operational.
The standing committee’s approval allows the tender process for the Rs 77 crore pumping station to proceed, while the municipal corporation’s planned Rs 20 crore pond-cleaning work remains a separate component of the Kalamboli drainage response. Further implementation details, including the work schedule and construction timeline, were not specified in the report.
