Gurugram roads turn into rivers after heavy rain

Gurugram, July 9  An intense spell of rain inundated several parts of Gurugram and made traffic crawl on Sunday as roads turned into rivers.As per the data from the district administration, Gurugram City recorded 71 mm of rain between 6.00 a.m. and 8.00 a.m on Sunday. The data also showed that Wazirabad saw the maximum rainfall (149 mm), followed by Badshahpur 103 mm, Sohna 82 mm, Kadipur 61mm and Harsaru 61.

Waterlogging was reported at several key junctions, including Sector-30, 31, 40, 15, Police line, Near Gurugram MLA office, Bus Stand Road, Sheetla Mata Road, Narsinghpur service road, Hero Honda Chowk, Basai Chowk, Khandsa, Sohna Road and Subhash Chowk, which resulted in traffic snarls.

Internal sectors and colonies such as sectors 10, 9 10 A, 29, 39, 47, Palam Vihar and Greenwood City also had flooded streets with rainwater entering some of the houses.

In some areas, even on the expressway pedestrians had to wade through knee-deep water.

"Nothing has changed. The Gurugram authorities are fooling people. There is waterlogging after rain at the same spots. We keep on hearing of plans from the authorities, but there is no change on the ground. After rain we cannot walk on the sector roads," said Aman Bhalla, a resident of Sector 30.

As the rainwater failed to recede during the morning hours, the entire stretch from village Jharsa to Sector 30 and Sector 40 turned into small rivers.

"In our sector, stormwater drains are damaged and not cleaned. The sector was flooded due to Sunday's rain. Several requests and written complaints have been given to MCG to construct them but in vain. The sector was developed years ago but the basic infrastructure is yet to be upgraded," said a representative of Sector-31 RWA.

While underpasses were largely unaffected, commuters were seen wading through knee-deep water on the expressway at Narsinghpur. The heavily inundated service road had a cascading effect on traffic.

"There was heavy congestion at Narsinghpur Chowk due to waterlogging. It seems that the city's infrastructure is not meant to handle heavy rainfall," said a resident of Narsinghpur village.

The district administration recently identified 112 waterlogging-prone spots in the city and 20 IAS and HCS officers were appointed as nodal officers to ensure early draining out of water in case of flooding.

GMDA, MCG and the irrigation department had decided to install more high-power pumps at waterlogging points along Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, including at Narsinghpur.

But these steps have failed to resolve the waterlogging problem at Narsinghpur, which has emerged as one of the biggest choke points on the Expressway whenever it rains.

"More than 1,000 traffic personnel have been deployed at key junctions for traffic management. Traffic police were already on the spot facilitating vehicular movement. We also coordinated with the civic authorities to drain out the water for smooth traffic movement," said Virender Singh Sangwan, DCP (traffic).

Meanwhile, the GMDA officials said the heavy rain caused flooding in some places, but it started receding once rainfall stopped.