Badshahpur drain fails rain test yet again

The Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) made temporary arrangements at Khandsa in June this year to ensure that rainwater flows smoothly in Badshahpur drain.

The Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) made temporary arrangements at Khandsa in June this year to ensure that rainwater flows smoothly in Badshahpur drain. However, the plan failed on Tuesday as the city received 128mm of rain.

HSVP had installed additional pipelines in a 600-metre portion of the Badshahpur drain at Khandsa village after it failed to remove structures allegedly encroaching the space and build a concrete drain in the said portion as per a previous plan. (Parveen Kumar/ Hindustan Times)

HSVP had installed additional pipelines in a 600-metre portion of the Badshahpur drain at Khandsa village after it failed to remove structures allegedly encroaching the space and build a concrete drain in the said portion as per a previous plan. The drain’s width in the 600-metre portion is 10 metres and the HSVP’s plan was to widen it by an additional 10 metres on each side.

The authority had identified 72 fully built and occupied houses on both sides of the drain, but could remove only 33 of them on one side by June.

Finding it difficult to remove or demolish rest of the houses as monsoon was approaching, the HSVP installed two pipelines and put six motors at sump well near the National Highway to pump out rainwater in case the sump overflows.

Chander Shekhar Khare, administrator, HSVP, said, “We had no time to construct a concrete drain in the village as the monsoon arrived. Hence, we had to make do with temporary arrangements.”

“The 600-metre portion of the drain at Khandsa is the main bottleneck. Our staff is on the job to ensure all motors run properly. We will construct a concrete drain once the rain season ends,” Shweta Sharma, executive engineer, HSVP, said.