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Axe falls on two engineers

Staff Reporter

Walia visits areas worst hit by waterlogging; issues stern warning to officers

NEW DELHI: Lamenting the failure of civic agencies in cleaning drains before the onset of the monsoon, Delhi Urban Development Minister A. K. Walia on Wednesday suspended two junior engineers of the Public Works Department on charges of dereliction of duty.

The Delhi Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi have come under fire for their failure to carry out de-silting of drains in the Capital leading to massive waterlogging in the wake of the downpour on Tuesday.

Despite having pointed out the weak spots last year and issued a warning that all roads in the waterlogged areas should be cleared of encroachments to ensure proper discharge of water, the situation has not changed much. Even the busy Vikas Marg in East Delhi that leads to the residence of Dr. Walia was flooded as the drains had not been cleaned.

Not satisfied with the situation, Dr. Walia on Wednesday embarked on a tour of some of the waterlogged areas to get first-hand knowledge of what went wrong on Tuesday despite expenditure of crores on cleaning drains.

Accompanied by MCD Commissioner Ashok Nigam, Principle Secretary (PWD) P.M. Singh, Engineer-in-Chief (PWD) Subramanian and senior officials of MCD and PWD, Dr. Walia went round various areas to assess the impact of waterlogging and the causes for such a situation to emerge every year.

Upset over the indifferent attitude of the civic agencies and the officials, Dr. Walia directed MCD to take care of the entire de-silting exercise from next year as it would help in curbing the tendency of putting the blame on each other. The MCD would be responsible for de-silting of all drains in Delhi except in the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) areas. The Urban Development Minister visited the waterlogging points at the School of Planning and Architecture, Indian Medical Association, Azad Bhawan, University Grants Commission and Indraprasta power station where manholes were opened to understand the actual cause.

Dr. Walia said he observed that certain junior engineers and assistant engineers were not concentrating on their assigned responsibility amounting to dereliction of duty. Angry over the sorry state of affairs, he suspended two junior engineers of PWD while a stern warning was issued to two assistant engineers.

The minister instructed the officials to deploy super suction machines at three points, review the entire drainage plan, widen and re-model the culvert near IMA and enhance the capacity of pumps.

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