New Delhi. A major problem of waterlogging in the capital Delhi is that the sewerage and rain water drainage system is badly affected, but this is not the case in Lutyens Delhi. Here not only the sewerage line is separate but also the rain water drainage system is also separate and it is an old system.

Waterlogging is happening in areas like Connaught Place

The illegal colonies coming up in other areas of Delhi increase the amount of sewerage and drainage, but due to the limited number of properties here, the population is also not increasing at the same pace as in other areas of Delhi. Still, the increasing cases of waterlogging in areas like Africa Avenue, Chanakyapuri, Connaught Place, Bharti Nagar have raised many serious questions on the drainage system of Lutyens Delhi.

New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is such an area in which the complete responsibility of cleaning everything from sewer to drainage and drains lies with NDMC. No other agency is involved in this.

In such a situation, the sewerage and road department of NDMC is responsible for the waterlogging here. The officials cannot escape their responsibility.

Where is NDMC facing problems?

There are sewer lines of 400 to 2100 diameter in NDMC area. There are adequate arrangements for water drainage in these lines, but the problem faced by NDMC is that the water does not flow out at the speed at which it should flow from the place where the water from their drains flows out.

An NDMC official, on condition of anonymity, said that in the NDMC area, rain water is drained either through the Kushak drain or the Sunhari Pul drain, but both the drains which join at Barapullah are either not cleaned or their height is higher than that of the NDMC drains.

The width of the drain has decreased

At the same time, due to the MCD and the irrigation and flood control department not cleaning these drains, rainwater is not able to drain out in the NDMC area. The construction of the pillars of the flyover in the Barapula drain has also blocked the flow. Also, the width of the drain has also reduced due to this. Due to this, the rainwater drains of NDMC start backing up (water starts flowing backwards).

To solve this problem, NDMC recently removed more than 600 metric tons of silt from the drain under the bridge near Soochna Bhawan and near Dayal Singh College. Due to this, there was not much waterlogging in the areas around Bharti Nagar and India Gate during the recent rains.

NDMC's sewerage system is 90 years old

NDMC's sewerage system is also from before independence. There is a 90-year-old sewerage system here. To replace it, NDMC has sent a proposal to the central government. In this, NDMC has made a proposal of Rs 556 crore.

Under this, this system has to be prepared as per the year 2047 so that it can fix the drainage here. The ill-effects of the sewerage system being old are that the cases of roads collapsing due to leakage of sewerage lines are increasing.