With the Capital receiving its first monsoon showers on Thursday, waterlogging was reported in many areas, including the Pragati Maidan tunnel, which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on June 19, and its surrounding roads, leading to traffic congestion in many parts of Delhi.
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The 1.3-km-long tunnel, which is part of the Pragati Maidan Integrated Transit Corridor project, is aimed at providing improved connectivity between the central and eastern parts of the Capital with the satellite towns of Noida and Ghaziabad.
The project was entirely funded by the Centre and has been built by the Public Works Department (PWD) at a cost of over ₹920 crore.
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One of the men working at the site said the waterlogging was caused due to plastic waste clogging up the drains.
“Two teams of five people each were involved in manually removing the waste from the drains. One set of workers attended to the waterlogging at the stretch towards ITO, while another was deployed on the stretch towards Sarai Kale Khan,” he said.
Traffic woes
Traffic was affected in various parts of the city due to waterlogging in areas such as Malviya Nagar, Teen Murti Marg and the road connecting Hauz Khas with Press Enclave Marg.
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At least four ambulances were stuck in a traffic jam near AIIMS around 1 p.m. due to major waterlogging under the flyover next to the medical institute where several vehicles were reported to have broken down.
Remedial actions
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who chaired a meeting of the concerned officials on Thursday, said, “Today Delhiites did not have to face the problem of waterlogging in most places.”
He added that out of the seven traffic spots that are reported to be severely waterlogged every monsoon, six places did not face any problems this year — ITO-WHO building, Minto bridge, Zakhira underpass, Jahangirpuri Metro Station road, Karala Kanjhawala road and Loni roundabout.
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Mr. Sisodia on Thursday also directed the concerned officers to visit multiple spots to identify waterlogged areas and take immediate remedial action and submit a report for the same.
According to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, desilting works in its jurisdiction were completed well before the monsoon. The PWD also stated that it had desilted most of its drains.
However, roads in several colonies in the city were flooded with rainwater causing inconvenience to residents.
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“The road opposite my house gets waterlogged every year due to excessive rain and we face difficulties in crossing this road. There are potholes that get filled with water, making them invisible to pedestrians and commuters. This happens mostly due to the clogged drains in our area,” said Smriti Goel, a resident of Safdarjung Enclave.
A total of 116 mm of rainfall was recorded in the Capital on Thursday, which is the heaviest rainfall recorded in a day for the month of June in 14 years.
Rainfall recorded below 15 mm is considered ‘light’, between 15 and 64.5 mm ‘moderate’, between 64.5 mm and 115.5 mm ‘heavy’, and between 115.6 and 204.4 ‘very heavy’.
The heavy rain also brought down the maximum temperature in the city, which had been hovering around the 40 degrees Celsius mark for the past few days, to 29.4 degrees Celsius, which was seven degrees below normal and the lowest recorded maximum in Delhi in the past four months.
Although all parts of the city received rain, Safdarjung and Lodhi road weather stations received over 100 mm of rainfall, while other weather stations at Palam, Pusa and Najafgarh received 31.8 mm, 44.5 mm and 10.5 mm respectively.
More rain expected
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an ‘orange’ alert, warning of moderate rain in the city on Friday. A ‘yellow’ alert is in place for light rain on the subsequent six days.
IMD’s bulletin for July 1 has predicted “generally cloudy sky with rain/thundershowers. The maximum and minimum temperatures would be around 32 and 24 degrees Celsius respectively”.