Roads, tunnel, underpasses flooded in Delhi

Traffic police officials shut the Pragati Maidan tunnel soon after water entered the corridor that connects Ring Road with Purana Quila Road

The Pragati Maidan tunnel flooded, so did the underpasses on Mathura Road, and arterial roads across Delhi got submerged even heavy rains pounded the city, exposing, yet again, how poorly equipped the Capital has remained to handle a basic civic problem — drainage. The scenes that played out on Saturday are sort of an annual episode for Delhi with roads going under water, crippling traffic movement, threatening the lives of the residents, and damaging public infrastructure.

The Pragati Maidan tunnel was closed for traffic after the corridor got flooded on Saturday. The tunnel connects Ring Road with Purana Quila Road with ramps towards Pragati Maidan, the venue for G20 summit. (Raj K Raj/HT Photo)

Traffic police officials shut the Pragati Maidan tunnel soon after water entered the corridor that connects Ring Road with Purana Quila Road.

The incessant rains caused large-scale traffic disruptions across Delhi-NCR with waterlogging reported across city roads even as uprooted trees added to the chaos.

Several commuters termed the situation “a nightmare” after being stuck in traffic jams for hours. Saturday’s chaos also raised questions about the city’s preparedness ahead of the G20 summit scheduled in September.

The Delhi Traffic Police, which issued updates regarding the affected stretches, said waterlogging and subsequent snarls were reported at 56 different locations on Saturday morning and the afternoon, including the Minto Bridge underpass, which had to be shut down for a few hours.

According to the live traffic report on Tom Tom index, the city recorded 761 instances of traffic jams impacting 496.6km length at 2pm. SS Yadav, special commissioner of police (traffic), said they received multiple calls at the traffic control room about snarls, waterlogging, uprooted trees, as well as instances of power failure resulting in signals not functioning.

“The Traffic control room flashed messages to all DCP, ACPs and traffic ranges, asking them to mobilise the maximum number of staff available and send motorcycle patrol teams and cranes in the field to ensure manual regulation of traffic at intersections where there was no power supply. The teams also removed broken down vehicles, uprooted trees, and restored the normal flow of traffic,” said special CP Yadav.

Vishnu Kumar, who was travelling from Janakpuri to Dwarka – a route that normally takes around 20 minutes — said it took him over an hour to reach home. “I travel on a bike so it is difficult during monsoon any way. The streets are poorly maintained, and are completely waterlogged, “ said Kumar.

HT reached out to Mayor Shelly Oberoi, who did not comment on the prevalent waterlogging in the city.

Leader of the opposition in the MCD Raja Iqbal Singh said that heavy rains have exposed the claims made by the Aam Aadmi Party-ruled MCD and the Delhi government. “AAP has been in power in Delhi for 10 years, yet the drains of PWD are never cleaned... AAP is solely responsible for the problems caused by waterlogging in Delhi,” said Singh.

Synonymous with waterlogging in the Capital, Minto Bridge was shut down for traffic after the stretch was flooded on Saturday -- just two months after the Public Works Department declared that the area has been removed from its list of waterlogging prone spots.

Apart from the Pragati Maidan tunnel, underpasses at Okhla, Pandav Nagar, Pul Prahladpur and Sarita Vihar were among underpasses in the city that were shut by the authorities after they were submerged, officials added.

Delhi is yet to update the drainage master plan that was designed in 1976. Then lieutenant governor Tejender Khanna in 2009 asked the civic agencies to prepare a new master plan. But no progress was made. The first credible attempt to update the plan was initiated by the Aam Aadmi Party government in 2021 with the appointment of PWD as the nodal agency. In 2022, the Delhi government announced the appointment of two consultants but efforts are yet to translate into gains on the ground even as the city continues to battle waterlogging.

A Delhi government official said, “There was more than 100mm rain in a single day, which is 15% of the total rainfall Delhi gets every monsoon. This much water cannot be drained while the rain is still on. Once the rain stopped, the water cleared rapidly.”

Experts said that underpasses and subways should be prepared ahead of rains to systematically control waterlogging.

Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning, School of Planning and Architecture, said, “Water collection channels need to be upgraded at both entry and exit levels in underpasses to fix the problem.”