Around 4 p.m. on July 13, 2018 , a red-coloured city government bus ferrying passengers drove into a waterlogged road under Minto Road Bridge near the iconic Connaught Place. Half submerged in water, the bus broke down and the passengers had to be rescued by police and fire service personnel. Photos and videos of the bus became the face of a capital crisis: urban flooding. Since then, not much has changed in the city, according to urban planning experts, and a ‘Drainage Master Plan for NCT of Delhi’ — seen as a solution to the problem — is yet to be implemented, despite being commissioned in 2012 and a draft of the plan being submitted to the government in December 2016.
Monsoon is expected to arrive in Delhi by July 1, two-three days later than its usual onset, according to the India Meteorological Department. Experts told The Hindu that the city will be flooded this season too, as Delhi needs systemic changes to tackle the problem and measures such as desilting of drains are not effective enough.
The master plan has various solutions to control flooding, ranging from rejuvenation of waterbodies and not allowing encroachment on storm-water drains to one agency managing all the drains in the city.
Delay in master plan
The last drainage master plan for Delhi was made in 1976 and since then the population of the city has increased exponentially. The Sheila Dikshit government in June 2012 commissioned a new master plan to be developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 18 months. But a draft version was submitted only in December 2016 and the final plan in July 2018. Even after submission, the plan hasn’t been accepted yet — an expert committee headed by R.K. Sinha, member (river management), Central Water Commission, is vetting it for feasibility.
A bus almost completely submerged in flooded water under Minto Bridge during a heavy spell of monsoon rain, in New Delhi on July 13, 2018.
“Everything is moving at a very slow pace. There should also be a policy-level decision on investment needed for its implementation,” said Professor A.K. Gosain, who headed the IIT team that devised the master plan.
“After we submitted the draft in December 2016 to the Irrigation and Flood Control Department, we kept waiting for responses from different departments. The final report was almost the same as the draft submitted in 2016; there were hardly any comments,” said Mr. Gosain.
The IIT professor said that the expert committee should have met soon after the final plan was submitted in July 2018 and it’s “not a good sign” that meetings are still under way.
“There was a meeting more than a month ago. Now we will have another meeting,” said Mr. Sinha. The expert committee head declined to give a deadline for the vetting process, but an official in the know said the committee is currently taking responses from different departments involved.
Problems and solutions
Manoj Misra, convener of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, a civil society initiative for the river’s rejuvenation, said though the problem of waterlogging started in the 1970s, it became severe in the 1990s. “Even if it rains for half an hour, the whole city goes under — there is a serious drainage crisis in the city,” he said. “Also, waterbodies have been encroached upon. There is no place for water to collect, seep in and recharge the groundwater,” he said.
Mr. Misra said that every drain has a carrying capacity and it is reduced by waste and sewage; the width of the drains has been shrunk by encroachment and construction by the authorities.
“Implement the master plan religiously, that is the way forward. There is no political will to do it,” said the YJA convener.
Manu Bhatnagar, principal director, Natural Heritage division of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, said that development activity in low-lying areas and over-concretisation of the ground are the main reasons for flooding.
“Porous paving should be done through tiles which have perforations or gaps in between so that water can seep into the ground,” Mr. Bhatnagar said.
Experts and the master plan state that multiplicity of agencies is a major problem as drains in the city are spread across 11 different agencies.
‘Ready for rain’
The Public Works Department has 1,034 drains and these are divided under three zones — East, South and North. PWD Minister Satyendar Jain said that as of June 12, 77% of desilting of drains has been done and the same will be completed by June 22.
In east Delhi, the civic body claims to have cleared 91% of the silt in 222 drains spanning a length of 122.73 km. In north Delhi, the municipal corporation says it has cleared up to 73.72% of its drains. Here there are a total of 194 drains spanning 116 km.
According to the south Delhi civic body, 89.08% of the silt in 247 drains spanning 163.36 km has been removed. SDMC councillors, however, in a meeting on Thursday, alleged discrepancies in the data submitted by officials.
(With inputs from Jatin Anand, Sidharth Ravi)
