A romantic at heart thrives on rain to wander his/her imaginations. A foodie longs for monsoon to savour various gourmet food. A regular Delhiite although heaves a sigh of relief at the onset of monsoon for it brings respite from the scorching heat of horrific summer, but the feeling is short-lived as what follows is the ugly truth of the national Capital.
Year after year, the monsoon mayhem returns to haunt the commuters, with each season turning more horrendous than the previous. While heavy rain has wrecked havoc in the national Capital leading to waterlogging and soul-sapping traffic jams, the municipal agencies are struggling to hide their faces. According to officials, the city lacks high-intensity drainage system, which can discharge the entire run off resulting into waterlogging.
“In case of heavy rain, it is unavoidable for some time as drains are not designed for heavy rain and take some time to discharge water,” said SK Shrivastava, Principal Secretary, PWD.
Yogendra Singh Mann, EDMC and NMC Director (Press and Information), said, “The drainage system is quite old and needs a revamp. However, we have taken all steps in our capacity.” He told The Pioneer that a master plan for the revamp of drainage system announced by former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is being framed by the Delhi Government and will take time to come into action.
Moreover, Delhi Traffic Police’s latest survey found that repeated waterlogging takes place in some areas, including 100 foota T-point Anuvrat Marg, Adarsh Nagar, Hakikat Nagar, Jahangirpuri Metro Station, Adhchini T-Point on Aurbindo Marg, Andheria More on MG Road, Andrews Ganj-Ring Road X-ing. The movements of vehicles have been hampered at areas, including ND flyover towards Maharani Bagh, Dwarka More Metro station, Dwarka underpass, Vikas Marg Chungi underpass, Wazir Pur Ind. Area underpass, Wazirabad Road to loni Road, Wazirabad to Majnu Ka Tila.
“We are continuously conducting inspections of areas where waterlogging is repeatedly noticed and ensuring that steps are taken to clean up the areas. We have also been desilting the drains months ahead of monsoon. But all said and done, the Delhi Government has to come up with a more advanced drainage system to be able to control the waterlogging across the Capital,” said Sanjeev Nayyar, Mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
Meanwhile, both the civic agencies and the PWD have also not come up with anything new to tackle the waterlogging issue. As of now, they are only busy with the routine work even after being aware that the city is likely to witness a substantial rainfall.
“Under East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) and North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC), we only have internal roads of the city, so we will not be able to tackle the entire problem of waterlogging. However, desilting process has been completed and our target is complete but the only concern is floating material like polythene, which creates major hindrance in the proper flow of drains,” he added.
SDMC Mayor Shyam Sharma claimed most of the roads maintained by the PWD were waterlogged. “Most of the PWD-maintained roads were badly flooded. It has failed its first monsoon test. The Chief Minister and his Ministers are just interested in politics and shirking their responsibilities. If they really want to provide better services to the people of Delhi, they should show some work on ground and not indulge in blame game and mudslinging. People of Delhi can see who is working for them and who is blowing its own trumpet,” said Sharma.
According to the NMC and the EDMC, they have cleaned up 37,475 and 9,004 metric tonnes of silt, respectively. The SDMC has also said to have removed 31,000 metric tonnes of silt from the drains.
Mukesh Yadav, SDMC Director (Press and Information), said, “We have completed around 98 per cent of desilting process. We have also deployed pumps and manpower in low-lying areas.” While the MCD claimed to have finished the desilting process, major drains coming under PWD areas like AIIMS and Barapullah have not been desilted.
However, the PWD claimed to have cleared the drains along the roads coming under it and has deployed pumps in low-lying and other vulnerable areas. Round-the-clock vigil is being maintained and emergency staff is ready to ensure that there is no water logging on PWD roads. While the citizens are gearing up for a heavy monsoon, the issue of mosquito breeding will also come up. For this, the MCD will continue with the fumigation process but on a low scale considering the health hazards involved.
“Mostly, the mosquito breeding is in-house, so we will be using pithoo pumps for the fogging process and will create awareness. Nodal officers are being made aware on how to control the situation in their respective areas where the mosquito breeding is high. Mosquito repelling granules are available which people can take from MCD offices,” added Yogendra Singh Mann.
Meanwhile, the EDMC and NDMC have also launched a new tollfree helpline number where citizens can register their complaints.
A helpline number for those suffering from dengue —1800112260 — has been launched by the South civic body to provide information about the disease.
The city has been witnessing massive rainfall in the past three days. The movement of vehicles was hampered at many places, including Bharthal Chowk on Dwarka link Road, Wazirabad Road, Apsara roundabout, Mandoli and Rajokri flyover. Traffic was also affected on NH-24 due to movement of kanwarias.
Traffic from Rajdhani Park Metro station towards Mundka Metro station was hampered due to waterlogging. Rain in the second half of the day caused waterlogging at many other places such as Pamposh Enclave, under Savitri flyover, Chirag Delhi flyover and Modi Mill flyover. The drainage system across the city failed miserably as water entered many facilities like Inter-State Bus Depot in Kashmiri Gate, DTC Depot at Indra-prastha and even accumulated in front of some Commonwealth Games venues.