Rain exposes MCD’s claims

NEW DELHI: The monsoon is not yet here, but only a few hours of rain on Tuesday evening was enough to wreak mayhem in the city. Several arterial roads were flooded, traffic lights went on the blink and vehicles were caught in a gridlock. And the MCD’s tall claims of being ready for the rains fell flat.
Traffic was disrupted on several main roads while areas such as GK I, Defency Colony, Moolchand flyover, Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, G C Marg in Vasant Vihar and the New Delhi railway station were submerged for over an hour.
The Central Control Room, MCD, said they had received a total of 35 complaints on waterlogging from different zones of which 15 complaints were received from the central zone, while south zone was the second most affected. Also, there were 31 complaints of trees having fallen.
“Two feet of water had collected below the Moolchand flyover and the median was not visible at all. There was a long traffic jam,” said Mitali Saxena, who was returning home to CR Park from Sunder Nagar. “The roads in CR Park were also waterlogged at many places and it took us over an hour to get home,” she added. A similar refrain could be heard from others who were stuck in traffic jams across the city on Tuesday night.
Waterlogging is mainly caused by overflowing arterial drains. With desilting work on more than 1000 out of 1,524 drain still pending, officials say the situation will worsen once the monsoon arrives. “In the city zone, desilting work has not been completed in any of the 16 drains. In the central zone, desilting has been completed on only 10 drains out of a total of 24. The story is similar in other city zones,” said a senior MCD official. He blamed a shortage of staff and lack of machinery when asked why work was still pending.
Meanwhile, MCD engineers, who are supposed to monitor de-silting, have also decided not to take part in any work that is ‘non-technical.’ “Till 2007, desilting work was carried out by contractual workers and beldaars but now we have been asked to get the work done by employing departmental workers. This is not our job. We have complained to the commissioner about this. They should make alternative arrangements rather than forcing us to do other people’s work,” said Rajesh Mishra, general secretary of the MCD engineer’s forum.
There are 2103 posts for naala beldaar out which 43 lie vacant; there are 23 vacant posts for motormen. Many engineering posts also lie vacant. “About three to four beldaar work under a junior engineer. But they are not trained enough to do desilting work in deep arterial drains, neither do they have necessary sewer cleaning machines,” said a senior MCD official. He added that the real work for desilting is much less than official figures claim and waterlogging may be a major problem this year. The civic body has identified a100 points across the 12 zones which are ‘vulnerable’ to waterlogging.
Rajni Abbi, the mayor, has called a meeting with the engineers to review the situation.