₹500cr corpus to be used to fix drains, says Delhi mayor

Addressing a press conference after a review meeting with officials, she said many areas are still dependent on 20 to 30-year-old drains that have not been upgraded and have fallen into disrepair

New Delhi

Amid furore over waterlogging-related deaths at Rau’s IAS Study Circle, the road outside the coaching centre was severely waterlogged again during an extreme rainfall in the intervening night of July 31 and August 1. (PTI)

Mayor Shelly Oberoi on Thursday said that vulnerable sections of Delhi’s decades-old drainage system will be revamped or replaced using ₹500 crore of the mayor’s corpus, after conducting a ward-wise survey, in the wake of waterlogging and multiple deaths due to rain-related incidents in the Capital.

Addressing a press conference after a review meeting with officials, she said many areas are still dependent on 20 to 30-year-old drains that have not been upgraded and have fallen into disrepair.

“Officials have been instructed to prepare a list of drains at the ward level which need to be improved. Departments have also been instructed to present an ‘estimate of expenditure’ for each drain. Work on these will be started soon so that the problem of waterlogging in Delhi can be resolved and incidents like Rajendra Nagar do not happen again.”

According to officials, Delhi’s drainage master plan was formed in 1976 for a population of six million people, which is currently choking as the population has expanded to around 25 million. Piecemeal upgrades have been taken up by drain-owning agencies, as a comprehensive plan has remained in the making for the last five decades.

Oberoi said there are old brick barrels in many areas, where sewer and drain water flow together. “The problem of waterlogging is most common in these areas which have common drainage-sewage lines. Officials have been instructed to survey all these areas and take immediate action,” she said.

The mayor said that MCD officers and staff will work 24 hours a day in monsoon, and encroachment removal drives will be carried out on ramps and footpaths across Delhi that prevent flow of the drainage run-off. “All drains that are blocked due to encroachments will be opened so that water can drain out. Wherever coaching centres or libraries are running illegally in basements in Delhi, they are being continuously sealed and this work will continue in future as well,” she said.

Following a meeting between the MCD commissioner and protesting UPSC aspirants on Sunday, the additional commissioner issued an order with 10 directions to engineers to ensure safety. These include separate entry and exit for basements, making all building plans public to ensure violations can be detected, removal of encroachment on drains, and survey and rectification in case of open wiring.

Leader of Opposition and former mayor of North MCD Raja Iqbal Singh said developmental works were carried out by departments under various subheads, but all of the funds were subsumed to create the mayor discretionary fund of ₹500 crore, which led to disruption of regular works.

“The mayor has not been able to spend a single penny from discretionary funds. They are talking about revamping the entire drainage system but where is the money available with MCD for this purpose? They keep blaming the BJP rule in MCD but AAP is running Delhi government for 10 years and all other drain-owning departments like PWD and flood department fall under them. What have they done over the past 10 years?” he said.