With pre-monsoon showers exposing the local administration's lack of preparedness to maintain city's basic services, poor conditions of the roads linking tourist destinations like lake city Nainital and Ramnagar to Haldwani due to rain, came as a bad experience for the tourists and others on Tuesday.
More so, delay on part of the officials concerned in maintaining the waterlogged roads only added to woes of the motorists and pedestrians.
Thus, the tall claims which are made time to time by elected representatives to provide better basic amenities have also proved to be wrong with many a city roads remaining blocked due to rain waters and choked drains here on Tuesday.
Conditions of Haldwani's busy Kaladhungi and Nainital Roads which have already been in poor shape following some brief spells of rain during the past one week, only deteriorated further due to incessant rainfall since late Monday night.
However, there is no effort on part of the local administration to ensure smooth vehicular movement on these waterlogged roads as the rainwater continues to hit these roads. More so, water spilled over these roads from chocked drains have only worsened the conditions of roads.
The Nainital road, which is part of the national highway-87, and the Kaladhungi Road are important roads as they lead to important tourist destinations, that is, the lake city Nainital and Ramnagar from Haldwani. But flood like situation on the said roads have resulted in traffic jams, and locals and visitors are experiencing major inconvenience.
With mobility remaining restricted in different parts of the Kumaon division on Tuesday on account of rainy conditions, people also experienced a tough time due to disruption in supply of potable water and electricity in urban areas like Haldwani.
Since the local Gola river is the main source of drinking water for Haldwani city, presence of silt in water led to disruption in supply of water.
At the same time, people, particularly in those areas where power driven tube wells provide drinking water, complained of poor supply of water as tube-wells could not work in morning hours due to power breakdown.
However, the pre-monsoon showers have come as a huge relief for farmers as sowing season of many early varieties of crops and vegetables is on. While people have started describing these rain showers as arrival of monsoon, the weather experts are not in hurry to say so.
"We are still studying the prevailing weather conditions," State meteorological department director Anand Sharma told The Pioneer.
"It would be premature to jump any conclusion. Therefore, only after proper study of the present situation would the Met office be in a position to say anything about it," he added.