Choked drains are city’s enemy No. 1

The city may have been inundated on Friday, but it didn’t have as much to do with the heavy rainfall as it did with the choked drains. Mallica Joshi reports.

The city may have been inundated on Friday, but it didn’t have as much to do with the heavy rainfall as it did with the choked drains.

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Delhi recorded 60.0 mm of rainfall till 8.30pm on Friday, but this by no means was the highest rainfall the national capital has seen in a single day.

Last year on August 19, Delhi saw 89.3 mm of rainfall and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi received just 106 complaints of water logging as against the 183 complaints it received this Friday.

So while last year was perceived as the worst in terms of water logging and traffic jams, one day of rainfall this year was worse, indicating that the civic agencies were not prepared for heavy rains.

“The rain, no doubt, was very heavy this time but it did not break any records. Such heavy rainfall is seen almost every year,” said a senior MeT official.

Even the incidents of walls collapsing were greater on Friday as compared to last year — 15 cases of collapses were recorded last year while the number was 19 this year. Last year’s monsoon was the heaviest in 15 years and the rains continued till October.

“The water just refuses to drain out. The drains are choked and the sewers are overflowing. This is what happens when the authorities fail to do periodic check-ups,” said Ramesh Tyagi, a resident of Yusuf Sarai, an area where people had to wade through knee-deep water to get to the main road.

Areas in South and East Delhi were the worst affected and major traffic snarls were seen on the Ring Road, Ashram Chowk, August Kranti Marg and Bhishma Pitamah Marg.

Other residential areas where the roads could not be cleared despite pumping out water was Railway Colony, Tilak Bridge, Greater Kailash and Kotla.