The waterlogging in Gurgaon thanks to good Monsoon showers for two days invited derision variously. The deluge in the Millennium City, which lasted for over 12 hours, was waiting to happen for the past many years and it’s just that the National Capital Region (NCR) did not happen to get a good Monsoon since 2010.
According to rural habitants of Gurgaon, the story of deluge can be traced to the connivance of the builder mafia with the state government. The two together devoured a complete river flowing through the district, which was the sole source of natural drainage in the area.
According to people working towards retaining natural topography of the National Capital Region, in 2010 the riverine land of Sabi river, which flowed through villages including Ghata, Gwal Pahadi, Behrampur, Maidawas and Nangli reaching Badshahpur was included in R(residential)-zone of the city’s Master Plan 2025.
The river had a clear course till Pataudi railway station and thereafter spread into distributaries. Its flat dry bed soaked water during the Monsoon showers. In case of heavy rainfall, its course took the flow to Nazafgarh drain. According to green activist Diwan Singh: “Sabi river starts in Alwar district of Rajasthan and flowing through Rewari and Gurgaon districts of Haryana joined Yamuna through Nazafgarh canal in the national Capital.” Today, in the Master Plan, the development agencies have replaced the river with a covered drain and a road running over it.
No wonder, the covered drain proved inadequate to take the load of 48 millimeter of rain on Thursday in a short period of one hour and 15 minutes between 2.30 pm and 3.45 pm and it overflowed. It led to a 16 hour 25 km-long-jam on Delhi-Jaipur National Highway, which could be opened only on late Friday after taking emergency measures including imposition of Section 144 of CrPC asking people not to come out on the roads.
The Irrigation department of Haryana government in 2006 had refused to include this riverine land into R-zone for Master Plan 2021. However, the Directorate Town and Country Planning of the government included the same area in Master Plan 2025 in 2010. This land was later passed on several builders for development in Sectors 58 to 65. Interestingly, this land was not acquired by the government but bought at absolutely low rates by the builders from farmers before its inclusion in the R-Zone.
Soon after the inclusion of this area into R-Zone, the value of the piece of land which was a meager Rs 50 lakh per acre went up to Rs 15 crore per acre culminating into a huge scam running into several hundreds of crores of rupees. The beneficiaries, of course, were the officials and builders and their political benefactors.