Delhi LG inspects drainage at flooding hot spots

With monsoon arriving in the Capital earlier this week, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Saturday inspected some of the city’s waterlogging hotspots, at the Indraprastha-WHO building stretch, the underpass at Pul Prahladpur and Minto Bridge and instructed officials to ensure drainage systems are made fool-proof.

The inspection comes days after the city’s first monsoon showers on Thursday submerged several parts of the Capital, including southeast Delhi’s Pul Prahladpur underpass, which has become one of Delhi’s recurrent waterlogging pain points. Floods at the underpass have also led to two deaths, including one as recently as end-May this year.

Though the Minto Bridge underpass has been spared of floods so far this year, it has been a decades-old problem for Delhi, with a 60-year-old man drowning in a flood there in June 2020.

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“The LG instructed the officials to put in place a comprehensive plan consisting of long-term measures to deal with the problem of waterlogging rather than dealing with the issue in a crisis management mode,” a statement from the LG’s office said.

He also inspected a new pumping station at the railway underpass at Pul Prahladpur, where six pumps have been installed.

While the LG appreciated the work done at Indraprastha and Pul Prahladpur, he was displeased at the drainage system at Minto Bridge, flagging “technical flaws” in the drainage system and warned that engineers concerned “will be held responsible and strict action will be taken in the event of waterlogging at the site.”