The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is being told to remove all the sandbags stuffed in the city's drains, or the Water and Flood Management Commission will send its own work crews to do it, Science and Technology Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi said on Tuesday.
Mr Plodprasop said he had ordered the secretary of the WFMC to send an official letter to the BMA asking where else it had blocked drains with sandbags other than along Srinakarin Road and instructing city officials to remove them all within 15 days.
If the BMA failed to comply, the WFMC would send its own men to remove them, he said.
The BMA's technique of using sandbags to block the drains was not in line with the standard principles of drainage.
The WFMC chairman said the law on the country's administration states clearly that the government has the power to take action for the benefit of the public. Therefore, he was not worried by the BMA's threat to take its case to the Administrative Court if the sandbags it owns are removed by other agencies, Mr Plodprasop said.
Mr Plodprasop also said people need not worry about flooding anymore.
According to the Meteorological Department the new storm from the Phillipines, Phra Phiroon, is moving northwards and will not affect the upper Central or Northern regions of Thailand.
However, the lower Central and upper South may still be affected by a low pressure trough and some storms, he said.
He said the WFMC would go ahead with planned flood prevention and rehabilitation projects, using a loan of about 350 billion baht.
It would be known in a little more than a month from now which groups of companies would get the contracts for the construction of these projects.