Heavy rain, traffic snarls hold Gurugram hostage

Gurugram Heavy rain early Tuesday caused severe waterlogging at important locations, resulting in snarls, severely arresting traffic movement during the morning rush hours.

The stretch near Signature Towers, Iffco Chowk and MG Road Metro stations, AIT Chowk, Z Chowk, MDI Chowk, Mayfield Gardens, in sectors 45, 22 and 54, among others, were the worst affected areas.

Waterlogging, coupled with a road cave-in at Shankar Chowk and trees getting uprooted at two locations, slowed traffic movement between 8am and 10am. Commuters and auto drivers reported jams lasting over an hour on Tuesday morning, and said that traffic flow returned to normalcy around noon, only after the rainwater receded.

Residents of Suncity in Sector 54 said that waterlogging continues to be a major problem, as usual, despite claims by the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) that they have raised check dams in the area adjoining the Aravallis to restrict water flow.

“Rainwater inundated our locality after heavy rain on Monday night and early Tuesday. This has been happening after every spell of rain this year too, despite assurances by the GMDA officials of having raised check dams in the Aravallis, from where we get heavy water flow during rains,” said Abhey Poonia, a resident of Suncity.

In Sector 28, waterlogging confined residents to their homes for over four hours, from 5am until 9am. Residents said they informed the GMDA officials of their situation, who sent a flood control team around 8am to pump out the water. It took nearly two hours for workers to make the internal sector roads free for walking.

Manav Jolly, a resident, said, “Despite the GMDA’s claim of having streamlined the drainage, we witnessed massive waterlogging, as usual, this year. Water entered some houses and the one-foot water level on roads restricted us to our homes for four hours. We could not go to the office and children missed school. Some residents drained out the water using buckets.”

Lalit Arora, chief engineer, GMDA, said, “We received complaints of waterlogging from areas such as Sector 28, Iffco Chowk, near Jwala Mill on Old Delhi Road and Rajiv Chowk. We sent our flood control team with motor pumps to do the needful. We have no complaints from Suncity.”

Sushant Lok, Emarr Emerald Hills and Palam Vihar also witnessed heavy waterlogging on Tuesday. Under the GMDA’s flood control system, headquartered at Sector 29, the authority identified several locations across the city that were waterlogged, including Iffco Chowk, Sohna Road, Southern Peripheral Road, Rajiv Chowk, Narsinghpur etc.

Such massive choking of the city’s traffic infrastructure has been reported multiple times — on July 4, July 14, July 20 and August 1 — since the onset of monsoon. While the city received 82mm of rain (the highest this year) on July 4 and about 32mm on August 1, Tuesday’s chaos was the result of just 2mm on rainfall, according to the district’s official rainfall report.

“The city’s drainage system is completely choked and missing in many places, which is the main reason waterlogging takes place every year. The authority should ensure drains are cleaned two months ahead of monsoon and malba (rubble) is removed timely,” said Aseem Takyar, a city-based activist.