Gurgaon: Ahead of CM’s June 17 visit, Huda orders cleaning of Khandsa drain

The drain widening project hasn’t begun as the Huda hasn’t been able to provide to alternative plots to residents who are to be displaced

Ahead of the visit of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on June 17, a team of officials of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) inspected Khandsa drain on Wednesday. The district administration has also identified nine spots prone to waterlogging.

Huda will widen the Khandsa Drain to minimise waterlogging on NH-8 and its service lane during monsoon. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

Yashpal Yadav, Huda administrator, asked the engineering wing to clean the drain to reduce the possibility of waterlogging during rains. The officials also reviewed the construction of a culvert of the drain.

“Our aim is to reduce the possibility of waterlogging on NH-8 and its service lane. We are working on Khandsa drain for this purpose. We have to clean the sludge and also widen the 600 metre portion of the drain in Khandsa. Since monsoon is neigh, we want to clean the drain immediately,” the administrator said.

During his visit to Gurgaon on April 15, Khattar had inspected the progress of Khandsa drain which has been posing headaches for the district administration as it is choked with sludge and is too narrow to carry out rainwater. The drain causes backflow on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, between Hero Honda Chowk and Kherki Daula, choking traffic every time it rains. The waterlogging had resulted in a 48-hour gridlock on NH-8 last July forcing the government to do an aerial survey and order the widening of the drain in Khandsa on a priority basis.

But the work on widening the drain is yet to start as Huda has not given alternative plots to families whose land and fully built-up houses have been acquired for the widening purpose.

Read I Gurgaon: Khandsa residents refuse to vacate land for drain-widening

The district administration had formed teams to adopt all possible measures to reduce waterlogging at nine places in the city. These places are Hero Honda Chowk, Rajiv Chowk, Iffco Chowk, Subhash Chowk on Sohna Road, Vatika Chowk on Sohna Road, Bus Stand in old Gurgaon, near Deputy Commissioner (DC) office, civil hospital and Gurgaon railway station.

The teams comprise officials from National Highways Authority of India, police, revenue, public works department, irrigation, Municipal Corporation of Gurugram and Huda.