Considering the approaching monsoon, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Anil Baijal, on Sunday, inspected Babarpur drain and directed the authorities to disilt it and clear floating material by August 30.
Baijal said that before the monsoon, cleanliness of all the drains should be done so that the problem of water-logging could be avoided even during monsoon.
"Inspected Barapullah and Badarpur drains, Deptt. of Biotechnology, GOI @DBTIndia has initiated unique remediation projects using plasma pyrolysis. This will improve the water quality and the entire ecosystem around the drain. I wish DBT success in this endeavour!," L-G tweeted.
Principal scientific adviser Dr Vijay Raghavan to the Government of India who also visited the drain with Lieutenant Governor said that the material floating in the drain is a major problem for which the use of new technology is necessary to get solution.
Raghavan was informed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) officials that the civic body has already installed enhancer machine with booms for removal of floating material.
Baijal was accompanied by EDMC Commissioner Dr Dilraj Kaur, Chief Executive Officer of Delhi Jal Board Nikhil Kumar, Area councilor Kusum Tomar and other senior officials of east Corporation were present on the occasion.
Meanwhile, South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has also speed up the process to desilt drains comes under it in order to ensure smooth water flow in rainy season.
SDMC Mayor Sunita Kangra chaired a high level meeting attended with the heads of all the relevant departments on Saturday and discussed the progress of desilting and ways to avoid water logging in SDMC localities. Mayor said that keeping in view the expected rainfall in this monsoon season all agencies will have to work in tandem and have to work extra to tackle the problem.
A senior 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 Mayor said that every year citizens have to face problems due to water logging which results into longer traffic jams. "It would be better if the agencies take proactive actions, work in tandem and avoid blame game then it would become easy to avoid earlier situation," she said.
All traditional water logging points were discussed separately in the meeting. A few among them are Dhansa Road Najafgarh, Sangam Vihar, Lajpat Nagar under pass, Kushak Nallah, Sunhari Nallah, Mehrauli, Defence Colony, Papravat Village etc, he said.
The Mayor further said that the certain agencies are being repeatedly contacted for desilting of nallahas and water logging problems but the problems are becoming complex. "The pendency in desilting in the city government nallahas result in water logging resulting in traffic chaos due to water logging.
Kangra instructed officials of various agencies to conduct joint inspection of a number of Nallaha so that the bottlenecks in desilting work could be resolved.
Every year, ahead of monsoon, blame game starts among the agencies over desilting of drainages across the city. The civic agencies such as municipal corporations, Public Works Department (PWD) and Flood and Irrigation Departments are responsible for maintaining drains in the national Capital, seems to have failed to synchronise their efforts to desilt drains before the onset of monsoon.