Bhubaneswar, July 4 -- A man in his mid-30s was swept away in an open storm-water drain in the heart of Odisha's capital today, renewing concerns over the city's poor drainage infrastructure and public safety.
The man was reportedly washed away in Drain No. 10, located beneath a culvert along the National Highway inside the Vani Vihar campus. His identity had not been established till the filing of this report.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), however, said the accident occurred at a restricted and highly inaccessible stretch of the drain meant only for engineering personnel engaged in maintenance work. It maintained that the area had been barricaded to prevent public entry and that the barricades were intact at the time of th...