The Hindu : Front Page : One more downpour, one more nightmare

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 19, 2006

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Front Page

One more downpour, one more nightmare

Staff Reporter

THIS WAY TO OFFICE: The scene at ITO in Delhi during the morning office hour on Tuesday. - PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

NEW DELHI: Life in the Capital came to a standstill on Tuesday morning as the rainy season's third heavy downpour left many roads flooded for hours, exposing all over again the civic agencies' tall claims of "preparedness" for the monsoon season.

The early morning hours saw the Capital lashed by more than 20 mm of rainfall that left thousands of office-goers and school children stranded on waterlogged roads for hours. In areas like the busy ITO Crossing, Vikas Marg, Inter-State Bus Terminus Kashmere Gate, National Highway-8 and NH-24, Mathura Road, Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road, Rohtak Road and Panchkuian Road motorists and commuters were caught in massive traffic jams lasting up to two hours.

On Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, better known as Delhi's Fleet Street, office-goers had to wade through knee-deep water.

"Almost all the 12 civic zones of the Capital reported extensive waterlogging. The worst hit were the trans-Yamuna area, Central Delhi, South Delhi and Outer Delhi. More than 200 complaints of waterlogging were reported from across the city," said a senior MCD official.

"Complaints of underpasses and areas near flyovers getting flooded were also received. Similarly, railway under-bridges on Minto Road, Chanakyapuri and Tilak Bridge were submerged," he added.

The worst hit areas included Nizamuddin, Greater Kailash, Azadpur, Wazirpur, Krishna Nagar, Dilshad Garden, Malviya Nagar, Lajpat Nagar, Anand Vihar, Mayur Vihar, Patparganj, Vinod Nagar, Geeta Colony, Vasant Vihar, Laxmi Nagar, Sarita Vihar, Okhla, Model Town, New Friends Colony, South Extension, Khichripur, Meethapur, Badarpur, Model Town, Ambedkar Nagar, Mangolpuri, Pitampura and Shahdara.

"I left for my office in Connaught Place around 10 a.m. and was caught in a massive traffic jam on National Highway-24 that extended right up to Pragati Maidan. It took me over two hours to reach office as stalled cars and two-wheelers lay strewn on the waterlogged roads," rued Kumar Pankaj, a resident of Patparganj in East Delhi.

Krishna Kumar, an executive working in a Gurgaon-based multinational, left his Saket residence in good time, only to get stuck in massive jams, first on Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road and then National Highway-8. "It normally takes me an hour to reach office, but on Tuesday I was stranded on waterlogged roads for more than three hours," said Kumar, adding that those moving towards Delhi from Gurgaon were also caught in jams on the highway and at Palam Crossing for hours.

For all the inconvenience and misery caused to the citizens, Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials claimed that they were not entirely responsible for the waterlogging and blamed the Public Works Department and the NDMC. "We have cleaned all our drains except for some in Shahdara (North). The clogged drains under the jurisdiction of PWD and NDMC are responsible for the massive waterlogging in the city. Also, the Delhi Jal Board has failed to clean its sewer lines, aggravating the problem," charged a senior MCD official.

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