A car seen wading through a huge puddle on a road in Doha after the incessant rains that lashed the country on December 16. Kammutty VP
DOHA: The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning has come in for severe criticism from participants of an online survey local Arabic daily Al Sharq has conducted to know public response to the ministry’s efforts to clear waterlogged areas, internal streets and some major thoroughfares after the incessant rains of December 16.
The findings of the survey are to be published by the newspaper today. Some 62 percent of the respondents have criticised the ministry and said they were not happy with the work of the ministry because some streets and areas were still waterlogged.
Incidentally, the ministry has an entire department devoted to tackling emergencies like pumping out logged water during heavy or continuous rains. It boasts a number of tankers fitted with machines that can pump water from low-lying areas with the help of generators.
Only 23 percent of those surveyed said they were satisfied with the ministry’s efforts while the remaining 15 percent said they were undecided. The ministry actually deployed the tankers to pump out water from a number of areas, including thoroughfares, the moment the problem was reported.
But a majority of those interviewed in the survey (56 percent) said the process of clearing logged water from the affected areas was not smooth and they were not at all satisfied.
Only few of the participants said they were happy with the process, whereas a miniscule minority of the surveyed said they could not comment on the issue.
In the survey, people were also asked about the efforts of the ministry to improve infrastructure like roads and storm water sewers so as to prevent rain water from forming puddles or pools during a downpour.
The response of a majority of the respondents was also in the negative, with some 53 percent saying they were unhappy with the efforts of the ministry to improve infrastructure.
Only 32 percent said they were content with the efforts of the ministry, while the remaining 15 percent said they were undecided.
The daily, then, talked to a number of people, both citizens and expatriates, on the issue and many of them stressed the need to have lasting solutions to the problem of waterlogging during torrential rains.
“I think we should have storm water sewers to dispose of logged water from roads or low-lying areas during such emergencies,” one of the men contacted for comment was quoted as saying.
The Peninsula
