Drones help KMC identify silted canals across city
Times of India | 4 January 2026
Kolkata: KMC urged state irrigation department to take up dredging of several outfall canals that carry storm water and prevent the city from flooding after a heavy downpour.
According to an official, a survey of the city's prime outfall canals with the help of drones helped them to come up with a list of some of the most silted canals that need immediate dredging. A team inspected the Guniagachi canal, Suti canal and Intercepting canal along EM Bypass. These canals carry storm water from large parts of south Kolkata and neighbourhoods located off Bypass.
Apart from these canals, Manikhali, Begore, Churial and Beliaghata are heavily silted, and the irrigation dept officials were asked to start dredging on Saturday. Large-scale encroachment on canal banks posed a threat to KMC sewerage and drainage dept in mitigating flood situations for the city. MMiC (KMC sewerage and drainage department), Tarak Singh, said, "Though we constantly updated our drainage network and conducted major desilting drives, the outcome of our initiative will not be seen until the outfall canals are dredged and made ready for taking a huge volume of storm water after a downpour."