City caught in monsoon mess, officials busy passing the buck

NEW DELHI: Heavy rain led to waterlogging in most parts of the city, resulting in long traffic jams on Saturday. South Delhi was the worst hit with inundated roads

NEW DELHI: Heavy rain led to waterlogging in most parts of the city, resulting in long traffic jams on Saturday. South Delhi was the worst hit with inundated roads and severe congestion even as maintaining agencies passed the buck.

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Commuters were stuck in jams near underpasses and other low-lying areas such as Sangam Vihar. Traffic was thrown out of gear near AIIMS, IIT-Delhi, Ashram-DND flyway, Moolchand underpass, Jasola, Badarpur, Panchsheel, Yusuf Sarai, Adchini, South Extension and on Ring Road.

Under fire for failing to prepare for the monsoon, government and civic agencies passed the buck. At least 17 government agencies in Delhi maintain roads and drainage. Activists have been demanding that a single agency should manage the storm-water drains to fix responsibility.

“Fortunately, it was a weekend so the traffic was less. And the accumulated water on major stretches had reduced significantly during peak hours. Had it been a weekday, things would have been worse,” said special commissioner of police (traffic), Sandeep Goel.

On Saturday, HT reported how the national Capital comes to a halt during monsoon every year, with knee-deep water on arterial roads.

Again as troubles mounted, the BJP-led municipal corporations and the public works department that is under the AAP government traded charges over the desilting of drains.

Leader of the House in South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), Subhash Arya, claimed they had cleaned all drains under their jurisdiction. He alleged the PWD didn’t clean their drains.

“The PWD didn’t desilt the bigger drains that fall under the jurisdiction. This caused waterlogging,” he said.

In response, a government official said, “The city was waterlogged due to the silt flowing from the MCD drains into our drains.

“The three municipal corporations had claimed they had desilted the drains before the monsoon. But that was not the case. A lot of silt flowed from these into the PWD drains, reducing their capacity.”

With no one taking the blame, city residents suffer every year due to waterlogging.

Navjeet Chaddhah of Greater Kailash II claimed his house got flooded even after light rain. For the past three days, he has been calling the corporation, the PWD and the DJB to pump out the water, but in vain.

“I have called up the water minister, the PWD minister and even corporation bigwigs. No one is taking responsibility. What do I do?” Chaddhah said.

A government official said the PWD had deployed 202 portable pumps to tackle waterlogging apart from the 529 permanent pumps set up across the city.

Nearly 860 workers in 131 maintenance vans work on PWD roads across the city. The PWD Flood Control Room received 584 complaints by 1pm on Saturday. Out of these, 408 had been attended by 1pm.