The India Street Pedestrian Mall Management Committee is waiting for a rainstorm to strike so any defect in the mall’s drainage system would show up.

Committee chairman Dato Wee Hong Seng, when contacted yesterday, said Kuching was presently experiencing a dry spell which made it difficult for the committee members to pin-point problems, especially along the shoplots’ rain gutters.

“A team will be mobilised once it starts to rain to determine the leaks at the gutters as well as ascertain the effectiveness of the drainage system, through which water flows out from the five-foot-way to the main drains,” Wee, who is also Sarawak Tourism Federation chairman, said yesterday.

Works to construct drains leading from the five-foot-way to the main drains at the mall were 70 per cent complete, he told shopkeepers who had complained about rainwater pooling at the five-foot-way during torrential rains last month.

Wee together with Kuching North Datuk Bandar Datuk Abdul Wahap Abang Julai on May 20 went to the ground to check, assuring that the situation would be rectified soon. They did a walkabout during which they found that during a heavy downpour, rainwater would overflow from the shop’s gutters and form pools at the five-foot-way. The committee together with Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) decided to solve the problem by putting extra gutters along the roofs of shoplots to channel away the copious volume of rainwater so the five-foot-way would be kept dry.

Currently, shopkeepers at India Street are displaying various items for Hari Raya Aidilfitri at the Hari Raya Bazaar, to run until July 6.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by Jeremy Veno

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