MCD begins cleaning Delhi’s choked Taimoor Nagar drain at last

The civic body said that it has cleared 300 tonne of silt and 39 tonne of floating material from the site over the last four days

With parts of southeast Delhi recording heavy waterlogging and backflow during the last few spells of heavy rain due to the choked Taimoor Nagar drain, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has finally started a special drive to clean up the silt and floating material from the channel.

An MCD vehicle cleaning a part of the Taimoor Nagar drain in southeast Delhi on Wednesday. (Sanchit Khanna/ HT Photo)

The civic body said that it has cleared 300 tonne of silt and 39 tonne of floating material from the site over the last four days, adding that the drive will continue over the next week.

MCD has also issued tenders to raise the parapet wall along the drain culvert and repair the barrier wall along the nullah road to prevent people from throwing garbage in the drain.

On July 11, HT reported how the choked nullah in Taimoor Nagar was the source of flooding in southeast Delhi, and the lack of a proper outlet combined with heavy rainfall created massive problems in the entire area.

All the underground drainage pipelines in the neighbouring colonies end up in what is supposed to be a 20-foot-wide drain abutting Eastern Avenue Road. However, a spot report by HT found that this drain progressively gets narrower, and is reduced to a width of barely 4-5 feet near the slums of Taimoor Nagar due to accumulated filth and unchecked encroachments. This creates a massive chokepoint, resulting in water flowing back into the colonies from where it originated.

Some of these colonies include Friends Colony, Maharani Bagh, and New Friends Colony.

An MCD official said that a special drive was being undertaken at the drain site, where six trucks and one hook loader along with an excavator have been deployed to clean the drain.

“Ten metric tonne of garbage was excavated from the drain on Wednesday, four tonne on Tuesday, and 25 metric tonne of floating material was taken out on Monday. We also deployed a poclain machine on Sunday to lift 300 metric tonne of silt from the area. Desilting was being carried out to mitigate the chances of overflowing,” MCD said in its official statement. It added that around 50 manholes and 200 precast slabs on smaller drains in the inner colony roads have also been replaced in the area.

Meanwhile, the engineering wing of the civic body has invited tenders to raise the parapet walls along the Taimoor Nagar drain culvert. Even though the erstwhile South MCD constructed an eight-foot-high barrier wall around the drain in 2017 to prevent residents from throwing garbage in the drain, the practice continues.

“Residents of the JJ colony and the people living on upper floors of the 4-5 storey houses along the nullah road continue to throw garbage choking the drain. We will raise the parapet wall and plug the gaps but this practice needs a behavioural change,” the official said, adding the cleaning drive will continue in the coming days till the entire 500-metre section was cleaned up.

During another spot check on Wednesday, HT found that a 50m section of the drain was cleared and widened, but a large chunk of floating material remained in the drain. MCD notice boards along the drain said that a ₹50,000 fine will be imposed on those throwing garbage.

In the last week, after heavy rains lashed the city, the impact of the mess caused by the blockage was visible across the entire basin. Near the nullah, several basements were flooded. Residents were seen using water pumps to prevent seepage, even as some households were busy building small barriers at their doorsteps to prevent the mess. During HT’s spot visit at the time, the “outfall drain”, a lifeline for the drainage system of this part of Delhi was covered with a thick layer of plastic bags, floating containers, food wrappers, and domestic waste bundled in bags.

Mohammad Wajid, who runs a shop abutting the drain, said that the cleaning drive was being taken up in the mornings over the last few days. “This needs to be a sustained activity because the garbage heap along the drain is massive,” he said. Radhey Shyam, another resident of Taimoor Nagar said: “This should have been carried out before the monsoon season.”