Badshahpur drain widening to be complete by April 30: HSVP

This development was confirmed by Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) officials, including administrator Chander Shekhar Khare on Sunday at a meeting with HS Dhesi, chief secretary, Haryana.

After a two year-delay, the ongoing work to widen the Badshahpur drain in Khandsa village, Sector 37B, is scheduled to be completed by April 30. If the deadline is met, it might help mitigate the issue of perennial waterlogging that the city experiences during the monsoon months.

Badshahpur drain widening to be complete by (HT Photo)

This development was confirmed by Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) officials, including administrator Chander Shekhar Khare on Sunday at a meeting with HS Dhesi, chief secretary, Haryana.

Khare said, “There was a delay in this project due to some snags, such as having to relocate affected citizens from Khandsa, a few court cases challenging our work, and some trees which were coming in the way. These hurdles are now cleared and we are set to complete the work by April 30.”

The Badhshapur nullah is the city’s arterial stormwater drain, which has been encroached upon in the recent years due to urban sprawl, reducing its carrying capacity and compromising the city’s ability to absorb rainfall. Backflow from the drain has been identified as a key cause of waterlogging during monsoons.

Following 2016’s ‘Gurujam’ incident, civic authorities and environmentalists identified this particular stretch of the Badhshahpur nullah, which runs through the densely populated Khandsa village for 600 metres, as a primary cause of the flood.

The width of the drain here is the narrowest in its 28km trajectory through Gurugram, at just 10m wide. It is about 30m wide in other areas.

“The carrying capacity of the drain reduces here from 2200 cusecs to just 700 cusecs,” Shweta Sharma, executive engineer, HSVP, said.

Due to this narrowness, the national highway and Hero Honda Chowk witness heavy water-logging as rain water flows back into the Chowk and has to be pumped to other side of the highway. The Haryana government had, in 2016, decided to widen the drain to avoid further deluges, with an initial deadline for April 2017. “The government has taken a huge gamble by delaying this issue for two years,” said Ram Kumar Fauji, a resident of Khandsa, adding that the issue of flooding has gotten worse in the village over the last five years.

On the other hand, activists say the HSVP’s engineering solution, which involves excavating the earth and channelling the drain via two large underground culverts, will not be enough to stop another ‘Gurujam’ situation.

Gurugram-based activist Sharmila Kaushik pointed out that concretising the drain in this manner is in violation of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order of 2017 that was passed in relation to the concretisation of a similar stormwater drain in Chakkarpur village.

“Studies have shown that concretisation of drains is a major factor for urban flooding during monsoon seasons,” says the order, which also clearly instructs the HSVP to abstain from concretising any more storm water drains in the city.