Problems that started on Thursday evening continued till late afternoon on Friday as rains continued to create complete chaos in different areas of the city.
Questions were again raised by angry residents, commuters and people working in Gurgaon on the crumbling infrastructure of the city with situations of caving in of roads in Old Gurgaon area, waterlogging of roads and huge traffic jams was witnessed in the city.
Following pictures of the monsoon mess in the city circulated widely in social media and extensive media coverage, there was a high-level meeting under the observation of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for better coordination of authorities to improve the situation.
The worse affected areas included the National Highway-8 which includes major crossings of Shankar Chowk, IFFCO Chowk, Rajiv Chowk, Hero Honda Chowk that saw huge tailbacks and slow moving traffic for a duration of 18 hours. Besides NH-8 areas of Sohna Road, Golf Course Road, Golf Course Extension Road, M G Road, Mahavir Jain Chowk, Palam Vihar, HUDA Sector-10, Old Delhi Road, Basai Chowk, Shivaji Nagar, Bhim Nagar, Mianwali Colony were severely affected.
According to the information shared by the office of the DCP Traffic, Gurgaon to Millennium Post, cases of road cavings at Sector-10 area, waterlogging in most parts of the city like Sohna Road, Basai Chowk and also the movement of Kanwarias in the city created huge challenges for the traffic police to make the traffic move smooth and it was only in late afternoon that normalcy was brought about in many parts of the city barring some like Hero Honda Chowk where situation was restored only after late evening.
Located on the NH-8, the Hero Honda Chowk forms a major crossing between the Hero factory and the industrial area of Udyog Vihar-6 and sees heavy traffic even during normal days. Poor drainage facilities at Hero Honda Chowk has been a long lasting complaint of the residents and traders in the area. “It takes around two weeks to pump out water from the area during monsoon,” Said Naveen Yadav a resident who resides near Hero Honda Chowk.
Responding to the criticism faced by the administration in dealing with the situation, T L Satyaprakash, Deputy Commissioner and Municipal Commission of Gurgaon told Millennium Post: “On Thursday evening, an unprecedented rainfall of 46 mm between 4 pm to 7 pm did cause some problems in the city, however, by Friday afternoon we were able to restore the situation.”
Speaking on the measures of pumping out water from Hero Honda Chowk and the reasons for delay, Satyaprakash said: “There were 6 large pumps that were used for pumping out water from Hero Honda Chowk. We, however, created an implementation blunder. The water pumped out went into Badshahpur nullah and overflowed which caused the delay.”