Waterlogging woes in some pockets of Calcutta will be as bad as last year, or even worse. In the rest of the city, the mayor hopes, the problem will persist with "much less' severity. The pockets that are feared to be worst hit include Thanthania, Madan Mohan Burman Street, Chittaranjan Avenue and Camac Street-Wood Street in Calcutta proper and Behala in the added areas. The Thanthania-Madan Mohan Burman Street-Chittaranjan Avenue belt will suffer prolonged waterlogging after showers because of the delay in commissioning a drainage pumping station at Marcus Square and a bypass sewer line under Bidhan Sarani. The pumping station and the bypass sewer line were supposed to be commissioned by June. "Mackintosh Burn, which is executing the project, told us last week that they had to wait a long time for police clearance. Hence, the commissioning of the project will be delayed by about three months,' said municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay. Sources in the civic body said the pumping station and the sewer line are likely to be ready in September. The vicinity of Camac Street and Wood Street may suffer extensive waterlogging, as the sewer line under AJC Bose Road has not yet been desilted. Behala is yet to reap any benefit from the new sewer lines laid under the Calcutta Environment Improvement Project because of two reasons: the conduits are yet to be linked with the drainage network and Charial khal, the main drainage channel for the southern city suburbs, has not been desilted. The situation in a few Behala pockets will be worse than last year as the surface drains have been choked with mud dug out during the laying of underground sewers. In the rest of the city, mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said, the duration of waterlogging will be "considerably less' than last year. The city can cope with up to 50 mm of rainfall an hour, following drainage revamp work over the past year. "It does not mean that there will be no waterlogging, but the duration will be three-four hours less than last year,' the mayor said. Around 1,000 metric tonnes of silt have been taken out of the underground sewers over the past 10 months. "Besides, the state irrigation department has dredged three major outflow channels