The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Delhi’s world-class infrastructure
Highest single-day rainfall in 88 years brings Delhi to its knees — key roads choked; entire neighbourhoods waterlogged; homes inundated and without power HC warned of this very day: Citizens ‘suffer’ in the end
AS DELHI witnessed a heavy downpour and waterlogging on Friday, the Delhi High Court had passed a slew of directions in two suo motu petitions just two months ago to tackle the very situation residents found themselves in throughout the day.
Key among this was to ensure a single agency handled all 22 open drains as, according to the HC, “multiplicity of authorities” had resulted in its “mismanagement”, ultimately “making the people of Delhi suffer”.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, in its April 8 order, had entrusted the Delhi government with this task. The court said this agency shall submit an action plan for de-silting which should be done on a “war footing and be completed by december 31,2024” in 21 drains excluding Najafgarh drain. With respect to Najafgarh drain, it shall be completed by june 30, 2025, the HC said.
As per its may 29 order, thehc was informed by the government that the Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) Department has been identified and entrusted with managing the 22 drains.
An action taken report filed in the HC by the government states out of the 22, only three drains — Najafgarh, Shahdara & Barapullah — are with I&FC Department and the rest are under jurisdiction of other departments. It states that the Delhi government had directedall departments concerned to hand over these drains to I&FC Department latest by May 31.
Once these drains are handed over, a detailed assessment for quantity of silt will be made and action plans prepared for completing de-silting by monsoon 2025, the report adds. The total length of storm water drain sin the city is 3740.31 km. But, these are managed by 8 authorities.
Not a new problem
When the first suo motu plea was registered, the court had in its July 16,2018, order observed“water logging is a recurring problem and occurs every year completely throwing the life of citizens in Delhi in disarray ”. It had also observed that it was“incomprehensible”as to why an action plan had not been drawn up “till date”.
Th eh chad then setup a committee to examine all difficulties relating to drainage of storm water chaired by former Delhi Chief Secretary pk trip at hi. its mandate was to examine issues relating to water drainage, make recommendations for improvement, and time lines within which the recommended steps will be taken up.
When the matter was taken upon january 30,2024, the bench had asked Delhi’s Chief Secretary (CS) and Principal Secretary (Finance) to join the proceedings on the next date of hearing.
On February 26, CS Naresh Kumar told the HC that the government had increased its performance by double and as a result, 12 lakh metric tonnes of silt was removed from drains. The bench then asked if the capacity of drains had increased in the last 25 years. kumar said while there had not been a “substantial increase, efficiency of drainage system has improved in the last few years”.
On this, the bench once again emphasised the need to have one agency overseeing the issue. “The capacity has to increase and desilting is not working. People who are cleaning roads are dumping waste in the drains ... why can’ t one agency be deployed all over Delhi for taking care of storm water drains?... so the buck stops,” it had orally remarked.