Clogged drains leave Gurugram in mess

Tribune News Service

Sumedha Sharma

Gurugram, June 28

While the Gurugram Municipal Development Authority (GMDA), Municipal Corporation Gurugram (MCG) and district administration claimed to have managed the waterlogging well today, residents highlighted the issue of unclean drains.

Drains blocked in...

Sector 45

Ardee City

Sector 21 area with MCG

Greenwood City A Block

Sector 57

Sector 56

AIT Chowk till last Metro station

Sector 3,5 & 6 Gurgaon

Sector 51

Sector 55

Wazirabad

Badshahpur

Sikanderpur

C1 Block Palam Viharh

C Block Greenwood City

Vipul World BCD Block, Sec 48

Sector 52

Sector 4, Concane Enclave

Sector 27

C2 Palam Vihar

Sector 15

Claiming that around 50 per cent of the drains, primarily in residential and industrial areas, were never cleaned, resident welfare associations (RWAs) said these were choked with horticulture waste, debris and garbage, which led to massive waterlogging today.

The MCG has reportedly spent around Rs 3 crore in the past three years for the cleaning of drains, but a majority of the sectors and residential societies claimed that no cleaning had been done in their areas. A survey by the GMDA last year highlighted that 60 per cent of Gurugram drains were clogged with debris and that led to waterlogging. With no respite from illegal dumping of construction and demolition waste, Gurugram is in for rough monsoons.

“The drain cleaners restrict themselves to highways and main roads, which they identify as key vulnerable points. We haven’t seen anybody cleaning our internal drains, which has led to the crises in residential areas. The garbage is not being lifted for days or is heaped near drains or green belts. The illegal dumping of construction and demolition waste, coupled with horticulture waste, has clogged a majority of the drains. The water did not drain out from a majority of the areas and the RWAs had to literally pull open manhole covers to let water pass through,” said Puneet Pahwa of the Gurugram RWA Association. A list of around 21 areas was submitted to the MCG, highlighting clogged drains. Waste management activist Ruchika Sethi, while speaking to The Tribune, said the sanitation crisis in residential areas contributed to the majority of waterlogging.

“They are converting every free space as a secondary waste collection point. The garbage is not lifted for days and then it chokes drains. We have been highlighting the issue and warning of waterlogging for days, but the authorities don’t care,” said Sethi. It may be noted that villages like Jharsa, Khandsa, Kaddipur report reported clogging of drains by garbage piled up there, leading to massive muck and waterlogging which took hours to clear.

A senior official of the MCG said stuck with sanitation crisis, drain cleaning did take a hit in Gurugram. “We have spent an entire year just dealing with garbage. A large workforce was stuck with it and, thus, not all drains could be cleaned. There are many areas where debris has made drains dysfunctional and need expert treatment,” said the official.

Power snapped in many areas

In what added to the city’s waterlogging woes, power was snapped for several hours in many parts of the city. While DHBVN MD PC Meena said there were complaints owing to poor infrastructure in some colonies, RWAs alleged that the entire city faced power cuts at night. “A majority of the areas faced outages. At some places, the voltage was too low, while in others, there were blasts in transformers. We have archaic power infrastructure in the city, which makes our life worse,” said Praveen Yadav of the United Gurugram RWAs .

Sources said an average cut of around three hours was reported in the wee hours in around 10 areas, while it stretched to around five hours in 15 other areas. The rural Gurugram was the worst-hit.

Industrial areas waterlogged

Despite year-long pleading of industrialists, the Gurugram civic agencies failed to put things in order and pre-monsoon showers led to major chaos in a majority of the industrial areas. Industrialists of Udyog Vihar, Manesar, Sector 37, Kaadipur, Daultabad, Basai, Binola, Sector 10 Pace City etc complained of severe waterlogging and power failures. “While the entire city was decanted of water within hours, it remained in a majority of the industrial areas till evening. The roads are tattered and drains are clogged in all industrial areas and that is what makes monsoon a woe for us,” said JN Mangla, president, Gurgaon Industrial Association.

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