Gurgaon grapples with choked roads, outages

Gurgaon: The heavy rainfall on Thursday once again highlighted the city’s perennial problems — inundated stretches and power pangs — and exposed the administration’s inability to manage drainage and power upkeep. Crores spent on management of rainwater and prevention of waterlogging went down the drain as residents woke up to the inundated streets and blackouts in several localities.

Between Wednesday night and Thursday evening, Pataudi received the highest rainfall of this season, 157 mm. It was followed by 118mm in Manesar, 111mm in Sohna, 83mm in Farukhnagar, and 63.5mm in Gurgaon.

Several areas reported acute waterlogging, with roads caving in many parts. Among the worst-hit were the city’s key junctions — IFFCO Chowk, CRPF Camp Chowk on Sheetla Mata Mandir Road, Bakhtawar Chowk, Basai Road, and Bilaspur Chowk and Narsinghpur junction on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway.

In areas like Hero Honda Chowk, Narsinghpur and Basai Chowk, commuters had to wade through knee-deep rainwater that suction pumps and stormwater drains failed to channelise. The inundated streets also led to traffic jams on the expressway even at a time when vehicular footfall is significantly low.

And as civic bodies failed to live up to their commitments and made vague arguments about waterlogging and damages, traffic police, once again, saved the day. Drenched and with half their bodies submerged in water, police personnel across the city braved the testing conditions to respond to the situation. From issuing real-time alerts to citizens and civic bodies to facilitating traffic, their quick response was the only saving grace of the day.

“There weren’t many vehicles, but waterlogging slowed down the traffic. No tailback was reported. But yes, it did take time to clear the vehicles as drains overflowed and the rainwater spilled over the main carriageway,” said a traffic cop.

The monsoon rains also damaged the already-feeble power infrastructure, leading to hour-long outages across the city. Sushant Lok, Palam Vihar, New Palam Vihar, and many other areas grappled with power cuts ranging from five to fifteen hours.

“Every time it rains, the entire power infrastructure collapses, exposing the discom’s incompetency. We kept calling officials but they didn’t respond. They generally blame it on the weather,” said Colonel SC Yadav (retd), a resident of New Palam Vihar.

DHBVN, officials, meanwhile, argued that insulating cable boxes on at least 12 feeders were damaged due to the rains. “Power infrastructure has suffered damages due to ongoing construction as well. While we have fixed the issue, faults occur during rains and it takes time to identify the fault,” an executive engineer said.