Ggn crisis continues, Delhi records highest rainfall in 10 yrs

The national Capital, on the other hand, received highest rainfall in 10 years, making life difficult for motorists.

The industrial hub witnessed its worst-ever traffic jam on the intervening night of July 28-29 as thousands of motorists were stuck on a stretch of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway — between Rajiv Chowk and Hero Honda Chowk, going towards Jaipur — for more than 18 hours. Traffic on the stretch eased only on Saturday, nearly 24 hours after the jam began.

The unprecedented jam, triggered due to heavy rain on Thursday evening and the breach of the Badshahpur drain, brought the city to a standstill.

With their employees stuck in traffic, Gurgaon offices registered a major hit in attendance and productivity. The industrial sector pegged the loss due to the jam at over Rs 500 crore.

The situation prompted Haryana Chief Secretary D S Dhesi to hold an emergency meeting of the Crisis Co-ordination Committee at Chandigarh and two senior IAS officers were immediately rushed to Gurgaon to co-ordinate and speed up operation to clear the jam. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Ministry of Road Transport also deputed teams of senior officers to ease the situation.

The traffic mess also led to a blame-game in the political sphere.

Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda blamed the Khattar government for the chaos.

Long tailbacks were witnessed in gridlocked roads in Gurgaon last two days due to severe waterlogging on National Highway-8 after heavy rains lashed Delhi’s satellite city, leaving thousands of commuters stranded and forcing authorities to clamp prohibitory orders.

Meanwhile, ripple effect of massive gridlock in Gurgaon continued to be felt in the national Capital with several areas witnessing crawling traffic in the city which received highest rainfall in 10 years, making life difficult for motorists.

According to Skymet, a private weather forecasting agency, highest rainfall of 144 mm has been recorded in a span of 24 hours during the last 10 years.

Palam Observatory recorded whopping 144 mm of rain in a span of 24 hours from 5.30 pm on Friday out of which 80 mm of rains were recorded in a span of mere three hours from 5:30 am to 8.30 am on Saturday.

Prior to this, the record stood at 126 mm of rain on July 28, 2009.

The downpour triggered traffic snarls at various intersections and busy roundabouts including ITO and Dhaula Kuan. Vehicles moved at a snail’s pace on several roads such as Mahipalpur Chowk, Rangpuri U-turn near Radisson hotel, Vayusenabad, Azad Market Chowk, causing hardship to the commuters.

Air services on the New Delhi-Chennai route were affected on Saturday due to rain, airport officials said.

“As many as eight flights belonging to various airlines that were supposed to depart for New Delhi and those aircraft scheduled to arrive were affected by delays due to heavy rainfall there,” they said.