Moderate rain, heavy flooding in city

Despite the Gurugram civic bodies preparations over the last two months to prevent flooding, moderate rainfall on Wednesday led to the inundation at most stretches

Despite the Gurugram civic bodies preparations over the last two months to prevent flooding, moderate rainfall on Wednesday led to the inundation at most stretches in the city. However, traffic was largely unaffected.

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According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), less than 15.5 mm rain would be classified as “light”, while up to 64 mm would be classified as “moderate”. On Wednesday, the city had received around 22 mm rain.

The city witnessed spells of rain throughout the day with varying intensity. While the first two -- around 2am and another between 4.30 am to 5.30 am -- were somewhat light, the third between 10.30 am-11.30 am was a downpour that inundated most parts of the city.

Such was the extent of waterlogging at some stretches that services of 11 Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited (GMCBL) buses were disrupted.

GMCBL said that eight buses plying on bus route 212 had to be diverted via sector 4/7 chowk due to “flooding by rains” at Laxman Vihar in sector 3A, while three buses plying on route 112D had to return to the bus depot in sector 53 as “the buses were unable to ply on waterlogged roads” between Dharam Colony, located in Palam Vihar Extension and Columbia Asia hospital in Palam Vihar.

At around 11 am, Gurugram traffic police cautioned commuters over social media to avoid stretches such as Hanuman Chowk, AIT Chowk on Golf Course Road, Narsinghpur on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, Rampur flyover exit on NH 48, MDI Chowk, Sheetla Mata Mandir Road, Vatika Chowk on Sohna Road, IMT Chowk on NH 48, Galleria Road, sector 41/45 dividing road, sector 27/42 dividing road, Khandsa on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, Sohna Chowk, Bakhtawar Chowk, Basai Road, Kanhai Chowk, South City 2, and IFFCO Chowk on Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway.

Chander Mohan, DCP, traffic, said that around 1,100 personnel were deployed across the city on Wednesday to manage traffic.

“At most spots, we were able to manage without much difficulty despite the heavy waterlogging. With the help of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), we kept 24x7 surveillance, via CCTV cameras, on 88 key points. Wherever waterlogging was reported, the area station house officer (SHO) and traffic inspector were immediately informed to deploy their personnel to the affected points,” said Mohan.

Mohan said there were no snarls reported, and they did not need to divert or block off any roads in the city.

“There were only a few areas in the city where traffic moved at a slow pace such as Narsinghpur, which has some localised drainage issues and thus rainwater takes time to recede. Our personnel ensured traffic kept on moving. In addition, we had also deployed 15 cranes to tow vehicles if an emergency arises, and these were used in two instances where vehicles were removed immediately,” said Mohan.

Parts of Old Gurugram also witnessed a light drizzle around 4.30 pm -5 pm.

The municipal corporation of Gurugram (MCG) said that the spells of rain affected their efforts to ensure no flooding.

“By the time we started clearing patches of roads from rainwater following early morning showers, it started raining heavily around 10.30 am. This resulted in the flooding today. To fix this, we deployed all our 22 motor pumps across different parts of the city to drain out rainwater. In newer parts of the city, rainwater was cleared off most roads by around 4 pm, however, due to some parts of Old Gurugram experience rain around 4.30 pm, it took us slightly longer,” said Raman Sharma, chief engineer, MCG.

As per the IMD forecast, the city is likely to receive such spells of rain till at least July 28.

In May, HT had reported that due to civic bodies allocating most of their resources and attention towards fighting Covid-19, tenders for cleaning drains in most areas of the city were floated in the last week of May and early June, thus it was likely that the city will witness heavy waterlogging this monsoon.