Waterlogged roads followed by incessant traffic jams have become a regular sight in the Capital, with even a few minutes of rain proving enough to bring the city to a standstill. This, while road-owning agencies claim to have completely desilted the city’s drains.
Proper desilting
The Hindu spoke to urban planners and designers on Thursday to find out why the same rhetoric is repeated every year during monsoon in the Capital, and what can be done to solve the problem of waterlogging.
Dr. Sewa Ram, professor of transport planning at the School of Planning and Architecture (SPA) said that only about 30% of the drain line capacity in the city’s roads is actually functional. The remaining has been clogged.
“The capacity of the drains in Delhi does not match the infrastructure. The drains are not desilted properly and its capacity has been saturated,” said Dr. Ram.
He explained that while the authorities are mindlessly constructing roads, underpasses, flyovers and buildings, no attention is paid to increasing the capacity of the drains to take the load. He said that in most cases the construction debris often contributes to clogging the existing drains.
Free soil
Another ill effect of urbanisation in Delhi is the lack of open spaces, which help absorb rain water. The lack of soft open spaces —unpaved surfaces with free soil — increases the problem of flooding.
“After a spell of rainfall, water gets accumulated on the side of the roads, eating up an entire carriageway and leaving only a single carriageway for the passage of the high volume of vehicles. This is the primary reason for jams,” he said.
Urban planning and traffic expert, AK Bhattacharjee, said that storm water management needs to be taken up seriously throughout the year and not just during monsoon.
“Everybody talks about waterlogging and jams during the monsoon and then forget about it. There should be a master plan, which needs to be implemented throughout the year,” he said.
The formation of a common body to monitor the design activities will also help, Mr. Bhattacharjee said.
