India News | Desilting of over 95 Pc Drains Completed, Claim MCD, PWD

New Delhi, Jun 15 (PTI) The Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Public Works Department on Wednesday claimed to have completed desilting of over 95 per cent of drains falling under their jurisdictions days before the arrival of monsoon here.

PWD officials said elaborate arrangements have been made to ensure that waterlogging does not take place during the upcoming monsoon season.

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PWD and civic officials said the process of desilting of drains will be completed before the arrival of monsoon in the city.

According to IMD officials, the monsoon generally arrives in the national capital by the last week of June. However, the IMD has issued a yellow alert, warning of thundershowers or light rain over the next six days.

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"We have completed nearly 95 per cent desilting of our drains and the remaining will be cleaned this month before the rainy season hits the city. We have also identified 145 locations which are prone to waterlogging.

"Of these, seven critical waterlogging points have been identified and tailor-made solutions are being adopted to prevent accumulation of water at these locations," a senior PWD official told PTI.

According to government data, there are about 2,846 drains in Delhi and their length is about 3,692 km. The PWD manages around 1,100 drains with 2050 km length along 1,260 km of road across 17 divisions in the city.

The PWD official said they also aims to dig at least 73 recharge pits or sinkholes to retain rainwater and prevent waterlogging.

He said these recharge pits will be dug up near waterlogging-prone roundabouts and road stretches.

"We have identified a few locations such as Aurobindo Marg, AIIMS roundabout, Ring Road among others where recharge pits will be dug up. Different agencies have been asked to dig 800 such pits cumulatively of which we aim to develop at least 73 such pits before monsoon arrives in the city," the official said.

MCD officials also said till last week, it had completed over 96 per cent work of desilting of drains while remaining work will be over by the end of the week.

The civic body manages around 700 km small and medium drains across 12 zones of the city.

"We have so far removed more than 87,000 metric tonnes of silt from 688 drains. Over 96 per cent work of desilting of drains have been completed. We have also requested Delhi government's PWD, DSIIDC and Irrigation and Flood Control Department to complete the cleaning of all the drains falling under their jurisdiction before monsoon to prevent waterlogging," the MCD official said.

Since June 1 when the monsoon season starts, the national capital has not recorded any rainfall. Usually, it receives 13.8 mm of rainfall in the first 13 days of the month.

In last two years uncleaned drains and delay in desilting had led to extensive waterlogging in many parts of the city during monsoon season. In July 2020, a 56-year-old man had allegedly died of drowning when his mini-truck was submerged in water under the Minto Bridge in central Delhi.

Officials said Delhi is divided into three major natural drainage basins that are Trans Yamuna, Barapullah and Najafgarh. In addition, there are also some small drainage basins, Aruna Nagar and Chandrawal, which drain directly into the Yamuna.

Last year in September, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that a "world-class drainage system" would be developed across the capital with drains and sewers being desilted regularly.

Following these instructions, seven critical waterlogging points were identified by PWD -- IP State Ring Road near WHO building, underpasses at Minto Bridge, Pul Prahladpur, Zakhira, Okhla, Azadpur, and Jahangirpuri metro station road.

PWD officials said at Minto Bridge underpass, the PWD has set up an alternate drainage system by constructing a separate drain and also deployed high capacity automated water pumps and CCTVs, alarms to ensure that the underpass does not get inundated during heavy rains.

At Pul Prahladpur underpass, the PWD aims to solve the recurrent waterlogging problem by constructing a huge sump having 7.5 lakh litre capacity along with an additional motor pump of 600 horse power to remove water accumulated there, the official said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)