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No end to city’s waterlogging woes
Had the national Capital witnessed heavy monsoon showers like the one in Kerala or West Bengal, it would have probably required an ark to save the city. Ritam Halder reports.
Had the national Capital witnessed heavy monsoon showers like the one in Kerala or West Bengal, it would have probably required an ark to save the city.
Delhi turns into a nightmare even if it rains a little with pools of rainwater clogging roads and disrupting the flow of traffic. The civic bodies and other road-owning agencies annually claim that they have cleared drains and repaired roads. But a downpour washes away all their tall claims.
The action plan and desilting strategy chalked out by the civic bodies usually ends up in blame game over the faulty drainage system as the city roads get flooded every time the skies open.
According to North Delhi Municipal Corporation commissioner PK Gupta, the fact that many agencies are involved has worsened the problem.
"The corporation drains lead to the PWD ones which finally go to the bigger stormwater ones which empty into the Yamuna. If there is a blockade at one point, the whole system collapses. The existing infrastructure is also responsible as the drainage system of the city is not up to date. Huge sections have old drains, which have much lesser capacity than required. When there is more force of water, they get blocked," said Gupta.
The south civic body commissioner, however, feels symptomatic treatment is being done now to the problem of waterlogging while a systemic change is needed. "Delhi is not designed for its current population. Large portions of the city have come up unplanned and illegally with no system to drain out water. How so ever much desilting is done, it will not help. Pumping out water works only as a temporary solution. A drainage master plan with water courses and drains is the need of the hour," said commissioner Manish Gupta.
However, Delhi Public Works Department (PWD) minister Raj Kumar Chauhan said there weren't many complaints of waterlogging. "We did receive complaints from outer Delhi where we took over some roads from the MCD last year. Those roads did not have storm water drains and we are constructing drains there. I have told the officials to deploy more pumps to clear water," Chauhan said.
However, rampant encroachment over drains also prevents the cleaning by civic staff. Building a ramp over the drain outside their house has become a practice. Also, at several places where there is no formal garbage collection system, most of it is dumped into drains.
