Clean internal drains to check waterlogging, GMDA tells MC

In order to tackle the problem of waterlogging in the coming monsoon season, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has asked the Municipal Corporation, Gurugram (MCG), to clean the internal drains and ensure that they are connected with the master drainage.

This advisory has come in the wake of complaints of waterlogging along the main roads during the monsoon season. This year, the GMDA wants to prevent waterlogging on the main roads. The infrastructure development agency has also planned to construct more than 6,000 additional road gullies and clean all of them so that the rainwater flows through them smoothly.

The GMDA advisory was given during the coordination committee meeting held with the MCG early this week. This meeting was presided over by GMDA Chief Executive Officer Shyamal Misra, in which Gurugram MC Commissioner Ashok Garg, Additional Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Manesar, Jitender Kumar, and senior officials of GMDA, MCG and Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) were present.

The officials of the Infra-2 division of the GMDA submitted that in some areas of the city, the internal drains required cleaning and were also not properly connected to the master drainage. As a result, rainwater from the roads flowed onto the main roads and caused flooding in many places. It was directed by the CEO of GMDA to ensure cleanliness and connectivity of internal drains with master drains. He also asked the MCG officials to lay new internal drainage pipelines where required to properly channelise rainwater of internal sectors into master drainage systems and avoid waterlogging on the city’s roads.

The Chief Engineer of the Infra-2 division of GMDA, Rajesh Bansal, said the pattern of rainfall had changed in the past few years, due to which they were being forced to clean and upgrade the existing infrastructure of drainage in the city. Earlier, the intensity of rainfall used to be slow spread over days, but in the past few years, the intensity of rainfall had increased with duration of the downpour decreased to just few hours. This change in pattern caused waterlogging and put a burden on the existing drainage.

The total length of roads maintained by the GMDA is 360 km in the city.

Last year, the state government approved Rs 124 crore for stormwater drain networks in sectors 68 to 80, sectors 37C and 37D and sectors 112 to 115. The work on these drains is underway.

The GMDA is also reconstructing the master stormwater drain between Rezang La Chowk and railway culvert 47 at a cost of Rs 13.9 crore. The project is likely to be completed by the end of this year.

The construction work on a 5-km drain between Vatika Chowk and NH-8 along Southern Peripheral Road at a cost Rs 105 crore is likely to be completed soon. It will reduce burden on the existing Badshapur drain.