The National Highway No-8 (NH-8) near Hero Honda Chowk is expected to face heavy water-logging again this monsoon despite coordinated efforts initiated by civic authorities to resolve the issue.
Residents, whose plots or houses were proposed to be acquired for widening of the city's main drain at Khandsa, are creating hurdles for the authorities.
However, the authorities said that they are almost done with the acquisition of land to Khandsa drain but there are minor hiccups which they need to overcome. The 40 km-long Badshahpur drain is known as Khandsa drain in this village as it's width narrows to 10 metres.
Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is planning to remove structures on the left side to widen the drain and do the same on the other side later. In the first phase, HUDA has identified as many as 34 houses for demolition in a bid to widen the left side of the drain.
“The civic agencies are planning to remove our structures without handing over allotment letters which they had promised us,” said Rajkumar, a resident of the area.
“HUDA is providing a plot in sector-37C as compensation and offer different amount as per the plot size but we need time to reconstruct our houses. To construct our homes we need to survive in a rented apartment. So the department should also provide money for rent apart from the compensation,” he said.
After the flood that had caused mayhem in the city, the officials planned projects such as; expansion of Badshapur drain, construction of additional discharge drain in Khandsa village, flyover construction work which is under progress on the Express-way. Officials in the civic bodies said that the situation will be much better from last year as a lot of progress has been made.
“We are in touch with locals in order to get them to vacate their lands for drain widening work. We will help them with all aspects. We are expecting all these plans will fructify and the work will be completed before the monsoon,” a senior Huda official said.
Hardeep Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Gurugram, said “The Administrator HUDA has assured to get the land vacated. Engineers have put additional pipes to increase volume of water through Khandsa village.
“The culvert of the National Highway is under up-gradation and capacity is being doubled. For better flow down Khandsa, the box drain is being cleaned and the work is in full swing,” he said.
Badshahpur drain is one of the biggest storm water drains in Gurugram, but it is encroached upon at several places, from Badshahpur to Hero Honda Chowk, Khandsa and towards Najafgarh drain.
On the other hand to ensure that there is no water logging during the monsoon and the highway remains clear for traffic, “The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has asked National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to complete all drainage system related projects before June 15,” the Deputy Commissioner, said.
It may be recalled that on July 28, the entire Gurugram expressway was paralysed for more than 18 hours due to water logging caused by the overflowing drain. It had resulted in massive jam that spread over several kilometers. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar had promised to cure this perennial problem before the 2017 Monsoon.