Gurugram's Golf Course road witnesses water-logging

Gurugram: On a normal day, driving on the Golf Course road may give you an experience of a world-class infrastructure. The flaws of the planning and designing, however, became evident again after a few millimetres of rain on July 13 and 16 resulted in huge waterlogging. Ironically, despite a large sum of money and time spent to revamp the infrastructure, the commuters get stranded in the jams daily due to the rain showers.

Despite high-quality construction, the developers and engineers have foregone the construction of drains and instead used the space for either a realty project or construction of an extra lane. Ironically, a major part of Wazirabad and Chakkarpur bunds passes through the Golf Course road. However, most areas have been encroached, leaving little passage for the water. Even though there are large drainage systems still present beyond the Vipul Belmonte society, the passage of water flow towards the drains is restricted.

The problem of waterlogging further gets compounded after the makeshift drains that have been constructed by the agencies are not able to withstand the extra water as it has not been cleaned. Clearly, no lessons were learned in this regard at the Sikanderpur Stretch where poor cleaning of the drains again resulted in the water-logging on the road and slowing down the traffic.

There are claims by some residents that the authorities deliberately did not build the drains. It has been done so that the prime real estate can be used profitably in the future. "Gurugram will never receive as much rain as Mumbai. Taking cognizance of this fact, it seems that the engineers have tried to save cost and land by not developing the drainage facilities at the Golf Course road. Instead, the remaining area has been either used as prime real estate property or for the construction of another lane," said Amardeep Singh, a city resident.

The Haryana government plans to enlarge the Badshapur drain so that excess water from the city can then flow towards the Najafgarh drain. Long procedures, however, in removing the encroachments around the area has delayed the project this year, leading to public agencies again relying on the pumps to drain out water.