“Cars Drowned, Roads Turned Into Rivers”: Delhi’s Monsoon Nightmare

Monsoon fury disrupted normal life across several North Indian states including Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Extremely heavy rainfall has caused waterlogging, swept cars away and washed away bridges in several states. 

India received 81% above normal rainfall on Sunday while Delhi recorded the highest rainfall in four decades.

According to the weather department, Himachal Pradesh received 104 mm rainfall on Sunday, which was almost 13 times above normal. The single-day rainfall in Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir was around nine times above normal, while that in Punjab was over 12 times above normal.

The excessive rain once again exposed the state of civic infrastructure in our cities. Despite the tall claims made by the government and local bodies, even metropolitan cities witnessed extreme waterlogging and traffic snarls over the last two days. As Delhi witnessed almost incessant rainfall for two days, roads across the city were waterlogged, including the one leading to the capital’s PWD Minister Atishi.

Akshay Gautam, who works in Delhi’s Nehru Place, told NDTV his bike stopped after being submerged in knee-deep water in South Delhi’s Pamposh Enclave. It took him more than four hours to get back home as his bike stopped in the middle of the road.

Another resident, Arun, said he fell into a deep puddle in East Delhi’s Shahdara. Arun added that people in Shahdara have not even been able to go to work because of inundated roads.

Year after year, the national capital witnesses intense waterlogging during the monsoons. Until last year, the AAP government in the centre blamed the MCD for collapsing infrastructure in the city as the BJP ruled the local body. But according to the residents, the waterlogging situation has gotten worse after the AAP government took over.

Saurabh Gaur, a Delhi resident, said he was stuck on a waterlogged road and couldn’t visit his mother-in-law who recently underwent a surgery. In a conversation with NDTV, he said that the route from North Delhi’s Ashok Vihar to Burari, that usually takes him around 15 minutes, took him two hours today. Even after making it through the traffic, he couldn’t visit his mother-in-law as the lane to her house was blocked. He added that the waterlogging was so intense that that several cars were completely submerged. The AAP government in Delhi has been running a ‘City of Lakes’ project to revive the capital city’s water bodies. Saurabh, pointing to the waterlogging, questioned whether this is the ‘city of lakes’ residents were promised.