Rain stops Delhi in its tracks

It took 126mm of rainfall to nail a lie of the municipal corporation of delhi (MCD).

Though Delhiites had prayed for rains over the past few weeks to get relief from the heat, the heavy downpour that lashed the national capital through Monday evening wrecked havoc — submerging several areas in the city and claiming two lives.

The MCD had recently announced that it had completed its pre-monsoon exercises — mending bad roads and using up its Rs20 crore desilting budget. Yet, Monday’s downpour left the city waterlogged, causing major traffic snarls and power outages.

Two lives were also lost because of the rains. Eight-year-old Sapna of Deoli village was drowned after her hutment got flooded on Monday night. Though Delhi fire service officials swung into action after getting a complaint, her body was found only on Tuesday after water had receded from her house. Nadeem, 36, was electrocuted to death near Mori Gate area of north Delhi when he came in contact with an electric pole late on Monday night. The pole also caught fire shortly after the incident.

However, no civic body ready to take blame for the chaos caused by the deluge. The MCD refused to take responsibility, saying that the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) had failed to complete their pre-monsoon tasks.

Delhi mayor Kanwar Sain expressed “regret” for the troubles people had to take due to the waterlogging but refused to take responsibility. “The pre-monsoon works of the MCD were completed in time but other agencies like the PWD, DJB, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation didn’t complete theirs,” he said.

Though traffic came to standstill almost immediately following Monday evening’s showers, Sain said he “personally visited several places but found no traffic jams!”
As several parts of the city continued to remain inundated even on Tuesday morning, Sain instructed all 12 zonal commissioners of the MCD to visit the affected sites and work out plans to ease out the chaos.

On Monday night, heavy traffic snarls were reported from Chirag Dilli, Dwarka sector 6,7 and 22, Moolchand crossing, Bijwasan, Andheria Mod, Bhajanpura, Sultanpuri, Lado Sarai, Ashram, Lajpat Nagar, Sarita Vihar and Maharani Bagh and even the arterial Ring Road, office-goers had a harrowing time on Tuesday morning as cars crawled along ITO bridge, Pragati Maidan, Nizamuddin bridge and Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road.

“I had to reach Connaught Place at 11am so I decided to leave home at 9am expecting traffic jams. It’s almost 11am and I am still stuck in Green Park. I just called the person whom I had to meet and told him I’d take another hour,” said Gurgaon-resident Ajit Nagar.

The meteorological department has predicted more rain in the next few days.