Monsoon is here, Panipat drains yet to be cleaned

Mukesh Tandon

Panipat, July 6

Monsoon has arrived, but the Panipat Municipal Corporation (MC) has failed to clean storm-water drains and sewers choked with garbage and silt in the city.

Owing to the lackadaisical attitude of the MC officials, residents are forced to face waterlogging. Nation Highway-44, various colonies and markets of the Textile City were inundated after rain on Monday morning. A long traffic jam was also witnessed on NH-44. The police personnel, with pants folded up to knees, were clearing the congestion for hours.

On Monday, the city received the second rain of the monsoon season, exposing the claims of the MC in regard to measures taken to deal with waterlogging.

Madlauda received the highest rain on Monday with 90 mm, followed by Israna block (60 mm), Panipat (44 mm), Samalkha (28 mm). Bapoli block received the lowest rain.

Only 44 mm downpour led to panic among city residents. Water was accumulated on NH-44, Panipat-Sanoli-Haridwar Highway, Kutani Road, Devi Mandir Road, Deshraj Colony road, Amar Bhawan Chowk and several other markets in the city.

The cleaning of stormwater drains and sewers before the monsoon season has always a big challenge for the MC here.

The MC allots a tender for ‘Nala Gang’ for cleaning the drains every year, but it was cancelled this year in May.

However, even before May, the MC had enough time to clean drains and sewers, but the work did not start in time.

Residents say the delay in cleaning work has aggravated their problems.

As per the sources, there was no super sucker machine with the MC, which can be used in cleaning sewers.

There are drains on both sides of a 10-km long elevated highway on NH-44, which are badly choked at various places. L&T Company is responsible to clean it, but laid back attitude of the company in cleaning the drains in time has led to waterlogging on the national highway.

Senior Deputy Mayor Dushyant Bhatt said it was very unfortunate that the MC has spent crores of rupees every month on cleaning drains and sewers, but the problem of waterlogging has not been resolved.

“Several drains were not cleaned this year and that has made the problem worse. I had sought a report from the MC officials, but have not received any so far. The MC will make more efforts to resolve the problem of water accumulation,” he added.