Moderate rainfall leaves roads bursting at the seams

Despite the moderate rainfall, several stretches and key junctions of Iffco Chowk, Sheetla Mata Road, MDI Chowk, AIT Chowk on Golf Course Road, Hamilton Court Road, Jwala Mill Road, Basai Road, Pasco traffic signal and Bristol Chowk were severely inundated

Around 39mm of continuous rainfall for five hours on Saturday morning left several parts of the city waterlogged, with traffic police issuing social media updates for commuters to avoid waterlogged stretches.

Passengers boarding interstate buses at Iffco Chowk carried their luggage on their heads while navigating their way to the bus stop amid knee-deep rainwater. (Vipin Kumar/HT PHOTO)

Despite the moderate rainfall, several stretches and key junctions of Iffco Chowk, Sheetla Mata Road, MDI Chowk, AIT Chowk on Golf Course Road, Hamilton Court Road, Jwala Mill Road, Basai Road, Pasco traffic signal and Bristol Chowk were severely inundated. Commuters faced problems in reaching their destinations, even as the traffic police said that there were no traffic jams due to a lower volume of vehicles on roads during the weekend.

According to a weather bulletin issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) of Chandigarh, Gurugram received 34mm of rainfall over the past 24 hours till 8.30am on Saturday and 5mm of rainfall later in the day.

The rainfall started around 4am and continued till 9am, following which another heavy spell was recorded between 6pm and 6.30pm on Saturday. The rainfall continued to keep the maximum and minimum temperatures two degrees below the normal, at 31.4°C and 23.8°C, respectively.

According to the IMD’s forecast, Gurugram will have a “generally cloudy sky with one or two spells of rain or thundershowers” on Sunday and Monday. From Tuesday, the skies are expected to clear up.

On Saturday, the Gurugram traffic police cautioned commuters to avoid the waterlogged stretches and plan their travel accordingly. Besides the key stretches, heavy waterlogging was also reported on the dividing road of sectors 3 and 5, Sushant Lok-1, Narsinghpur-Khandsa stretch on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, and Rezangla Chowk-Sector 5 stretch.

Although susceptible to waterlogging, the Iffco Chowk junction had far higher rainwater accumulation than usual despite moderate rainfall and was the worst-affected area on Saturday.

Passengers boarding interstate buses from the junction carried their luggage on their heads while navigating their way to the bus stop amid knee-deep rainwater. Such was the extent of waterlogging at certain points that vehicular movement on the carriageway was restricted to just one lane.

“I cross Iffco Chowk almost on a daily basis. However, today’s waterlogging was the worst this season. It was almost inexplicable as the city has received much higher rainfall this monsoon, but the waterlogging situation was far better. Due to the waterlogging, I opted to drive through Cyber City to reach the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway,” said Manish Sinha, a resident of Sector 28.

Officials of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) said that rainwater was cleared from all major stretches by noon. “By noon, most roads across the city were completely clear of rainwater, barring one carriageway of the sector 3/5 diving road, and the Rezangla Chowk-Sector 5 stretch,” said Pardeep Kumar, chief engineer, GMDA.

Kumar said that a 100-metre section of the sector 3/5 dividing road is located on a depression, due to which the carriageway towards the railway road was filled with rainwater till 3pm. A similar situation was observed at the Rezangla Chowk-Sector 5 stretch in patches.

“Using motor pumps and suction tankers, we were able to drain out rainwater by 3pm at both these points. Regarding waterlogging at Iffco Chowk, I have asked officials concerned for an explanation,” said Kumar.

According to a senior GMDA official privy to the matter, the motor pumps near Iffco Chowk may have been turned on after heavy rainwater accumulation or that the passage to the master drain near the junction may have been hampered by a rock or silt deposition.

Traffic police officials could be seen diverting vehicles at the junction through the limited road space available.

Ravinder Singh Tomar, the deputy commissioner of police (traffic), said that around 1,100 traffic police officials were deployed across the city roads. “Due to the weekend, traffic volume across the city was far lower than usual and as such, we did not report any difficulty or congestion from any of the stretches. We are closely monitoring the rain situation, until the next dry spell,” said Tomar.