Gururgam: Heavy rains in August last year had completely submerged the Hero Chowk underpass with water levels filling up to 20 feet. It took three days to clear the underpass. More than five months after the incident, Gurugram roads were submerged again with just eight millimetres of rainfall on Tuesday morning. The first heavy rainfall of the year 2019 may have cleared Gurugram's toxic air but, it again exposed the poor drainage systems of the city with all the major roads filled with water.
The worst affected were traffic junctions along the NH-8 starting from Shankar Chowk, IFFCO Chowk, Hero Chowk and Rajiv Chowk. Other areas from where huge traffic snarls were reported due to waterlogging were Sohna Road, Golf Course Road, having Chowk, Old-Delhi Road, Jacobpura, Basai Chowk and Sector-10 Road.
Adding to the misery of commuters was the intensity of rainfall, which was at its peak from 7 am to 9 am, a time when there is a huge rush of office-goers. Also affected were thousands of school going children whose vehicles were also got stuck in the traffic jam.
The residents of Gurugram again vented their ire on the infrastructure of the city not being able to cope up with the rains. "Few hours of rains and Gurugram roads turn into a river. During this, it is advisable to not travel by cars but by boats. What is even more shameful is that the recently revamped roads where hundreds of crores have been spent also get waterlogged," said a resident Mayank Bharadwaj.
Many citizens expressed their anger against district planners what saved the day for the district administration was the proactiveness of Gurugram traffic police. Not only the police department monitored traffic digitally but more than 1,000 professionals were also on the ground managing the traffic. The situation was brought to normal at around noon, two hours after the heavy rain stopped. In the evening, however, there was a drizzle.