Downpour brings traffic in Gurugram to its knees

Gurugram: The Millennium City's inability to tackle rains was once again exposed on Thursday, as residents struggled with water-logging and traffic snarls in various areas.

Large-scale water-logging was reported in sectors 4, 5 and 10, at Hero Honda chowk, IFFCO chowk, DLF Phase-3 and most severely at Gurugram bus stand, where were complaints nearly two feet of water had collected on the roads.

Even areas like Golf Course Road and National Highway-8, where thousands of crores of rupees have been poured in, were filled with water and massive traffic snarls.

The flaws of the planning and designing of these areas became evident with just a few millimeters of rain.

Despite claims of top-class engineering and construction work being used for revamping these areas, the developers seem to have completely forgotten the construction of drains. Instead, the space has been used for either a realty project or construction of an extra lane.

It may be pointed out that a major part of the Wazirabad and Chakkarpur bunds passes through the Golf Course Road, with most of that area having been encroached leaving little passage for the water to pass.

The problem of waterlogging further gets compounded after the makeshift drains, constructed by the civic agencies, are not able to withstand enough water as it has not been clean.

The Haryana government plans to enlarge the Badshapur drain so that excess water from the city can then flow towards the Najafgarh drain.

However, procedural delay in removing encroachments around the area has delayed the project this year, leading to public agencies again to rely on pumps to drain out water.

Citing the example of Golf Course Road, however, many residents claim that sincere efforts have not been made by the government to ensure that water gets drained out from other parts of the city as well.