The monsoon in Delhi is not expected to be any different this year as civic agencies have not started de-clogging of drains which may result in waterlogged roads disrupting traffic and choked drains overflowing on to the streets and further providing an ideal mosquito breeding ground.
North and East Corporations have still not taken the desilting work with full capacity and instead shrugging off their responsibilities on Public Works Department (PWD). However, South Delhi Municipal
Corporation (SDMC) claimed to have de-silted 85 per cent of drains so far.
A senior South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) official said that South Delhi has 246 drains with a total length of 164.38 km.
Officials said the drains are being cleared which is full of hyacinth and floating garbage.
The SDMC Mayor Sunita Kangra took a round of six wards under West Zone on Thursday and directed officials to speed up the work. Kangra visited Ranhola, Bakkarwala, Vikas Nagar, Dhobhi Ghat, Kali Basti, Vikaspuri and Mohan Garden and instructed officials to clear the drains as soon as possible. The choked drains may become a cause of the outbreak of vector borne diseases apart from water accumulation in the residential colonies, she said.
“We have approx desilted all the drains and the remaining will be done in three or four days.
The Corporation will achieve the target to desilt all the drains under its jurisdiction before the approaching monsoon,” a senior SDMC official said.
Shifting the blame on PWD, North Mayor Avtar had directed officials to write to the PWD over desilting of its drains.
A senior North Corporation official said that as all the drains of the North Corporation have been merged with PWD drains so the drains maintained by the PWD need to be cleared first to provide smooth flow of water.
“The main problem is that as the bigger drains have not been cleaned, water starts coming back (into the smaller drains). Mosquitoes that cause chikungunya and dengue breed in the stagnant mush. The corporation maintains 195 drains and put of all the efforts to unclog them all before monsoon, he said.
The official said that the Corporation hasbeen approaching various agencies responsible for maintaining drains in the city but despite the continuous requests, the authoritiesunder the Delhi Government have failed to even show a positive sign.
A senior health officer in North Corporation said that the mosquito that breeds in drain water is the Culex but not the Aedes and Anopheles which prefer fresh water to breed. The Culex bites but does not have a history of spreading diseases.