Rain exposes Ludhiana MC’s tall claims

Shivani Bhakoo

Ludhiana, June 27

Heavy rain that lashed the city for around an hour on Thursday left many posh areas inundated, exposing the tall claims of the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation on desilting of sewer lines.

Though the arrival of the first pre-monsoon showers in the city provided much-needed relief from the hot weather, poor drainage led to the overflowing of drains and long traffic jams.

Residents of areas, including Mall Road, Rani Jhansi Road, Punjab Agriculture University, Haibowal, Salem Tabri, Moti Nagar, Chander Nagar Pulley, were worst-affected.

Jagdish Kumar, a local resident, said, “The Buddha Nullah overflows every year. The wild overgrowth and garbage inside the nullah has choked it, leading to overflow of dirty water on the roads. The roads are now waterlogged and shut for traffic movement. I have to opt for another route, but this is sheer harassment of the public.”

Ramandeep, a labourer riding a cycle, said: “Due to waterlogging, we are not able to reach our construction sites on time and the contractor cuts our daily wages. There was over two foot of water on the road, making it impossible to pedal. This happens every year,” he said.

Heavy waterlogging was witnessed in low-lying areas of the city such as Mall Road, Rakh Bagh Road, the Civil Lines area and Dugri.

Sarban Kaur, a resident of Dugri, said garbage, dry leaves and filth floats in the water outside their houses. “We have to wait for the sewer water to recede before we can step out of our houses,” she said.

Good for crop: Experts

About 40 mm of rain was received in the city today morning. KKGill, an agrometeorologist at PAU, said these were the first pre-monsoon showers and after June 30, the monsoon will approach the region. “The rains are good for rice and other green vegetables,” added Prof Gill.

Buddha Nullah overflows

The roads along the Buddha Nullah connecting areas such as Chander Nagar, Shivaji Nagar, Haibowal were submerged. The foul-smelling water of Buddha Nullah got mixed with rainwater and inundated nearby roads, giving a tough time to commuters. Workers were seen de-silting the nullah with sucking machines and wooden sticks. Services of JCBs were taken to remove the garbage and weed from the water bodies.

Municipal Corporation ADC Paramdeep Singh when asked why the cleaning of nullah could not be done timely, much before the onset of monsoons, said, ”We have got just three JCBs at our disposal, which are judicially used wherever required. At times, we can not do preventive action as remedial action becomes more important. We have ordered more machinery and things would be better.”

The Chandigarh-Ludhiana Road from near Vardhman Chowk, was submerged in water. The road was under 3-feet water. Videos depicting the sorry condition of the area were widely circulated on social media. Many transformers on the road were seen submerged in deep water.

Traffic snarl-ups galore

Heavy rain caused huge inconvenience to the residents as traffic snarls witnessed in various areas in the city such as Field Ganj, Dholewal chowk, Samrala Chowk, Clock Tower, Saban Bazaar, Chandigarh road, Chandar Nagar, Shingar Cinema Road, Wadi Haibowal, Railway Road, etc.