The Hindu : New Delhi News : Metro geared up for the monsoon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 25, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Metro geared up for the monsoon

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI, JUNE 24. While most civic agencies wait for the monsoon to arrive -- or pass -- before getting their act together and ensuring that the problems caused by waterlogging and poor quality of roads are minimised, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is raising the bar as far as standards are concerned by laying as many roads as possible before the onset of the rainy season and taking necessary steps to ensure that the rainwater does not affect construction activity on its underground corridors.

Since the construction of the 11-km Central Secretariat-Delhi University section of the underground corridor (Line 2) is at an advanced stage of completion now, the DMRC would be taking a number of steps to prevent the entry of the rainwater into the tunnels as that would affect work.

The Director (Programme and Planning), C.B.K. Rao, said to prevent the entry of water in the underground areas two feet high protection walls would be constructed around all the open cuts. This would prevent the flow of water from nearby roads and open spaces into the construction sites.

Similarly, near the entry and exit points of the underground construction sites the plinth level would be raised by a couple of feet so that water from surrounding areas does not go in. This would mean that the men and machine going into the construction areas would first be going up the raised area and then proceed downwards.

These preventive measures have been taken to ensure that the Metro project is able to stick to its schedule and there are no delays. And even if some water was to enter the construction sites despite all the preventive measures, the officials say it would travel into the sumps created for the purpose from where it would then be pumped out through a number of pumps which remain in place for such an eventuality.

The water pumped out from the Metro system is quickly drained out through a network of drains. A number of storm water drains have been identified at various sites for drainage of wastewater from construction zones. This prevents unnecessary waterlogging within the system.

The Metro authorities have also almost completed laying of the four-lane road on Rafi Marg connecting Yojana Bhavan to Rail Bhavan roundabout. However, while a major section of the same road leading up to Nirman Bhavan is also due to be completed soon, Mr. Rao said it is still about six to seven months before the road is completely restored for vehicular traffic.

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