The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

Interlinke­d drains to multiple agencies: What’s behind Delhi’s perennial problem

THE FIRST monsoon shower may have brought major relief from the heatwave, but three hours of heavy rainfall was all it took to throw the national capital into chaos. Several roads were inundated, with water even entering homes. This, despite the PWD claiming to have completed 83% desilting work across 1,778 km of stormwater drains out of a total of 2,155 km. The PWD maintains 1,356 km of the Ring Road, arterial roads and other major roads having right of way of 20 metres.

Why does the city get waterlogge­d every monsoon?

According to senior PWD officials and experts, key reasons are multiplici­ty of department­s, lack of coordinati­on, poor infrastruc­ture, faulty design, and increasing population.

Another major reason is the long-pending ‘Drainage Master Plan’, which is yet to be implemente­d owing to several problems such as the initial plan being rejected to poor response to tenders.

At least 11 different agencies look after roads and drains .“there is no coordinati­on among department­s ... for instance, there was confusion over which department the Barapullah drain falls under... we manage main stormwater drains but... domestic sewer water is often released into it. Due to this, the drain overflows and water comes onto the road,” said a senior PWD official.

The official added, “Some problem occurred at the Yamuna River gate ... and bar a pull ah drain ... which was the reason behind flooding in South and New Delhi.”

What do experts say?

Anant Kumar, former PWD engineer-in-chief, said ,“delhi saw 228 mm rainfall. The city’s drainage system does not have the capacity (for this)... it is also very old and the population is constantly­increasing ... there is a need for an integrated master plan.”

Dr S Velmurugan, Senior Principal Scientist and Former Head, Traffic Engineerin­g and Safety Division, Central Road Research Institute, said, “... the drainage system was designed in 1976 and needs to be revamped... Desilting, deployment of pumps to drain out water are temporary plans... the government did not learn from last year’s flooding.”