MCD giving special focus on cleaning drains around Commonwealth sites

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is giving special focus on de-silting of drains around Commonwealth Games sites in the national capital.

The work of cleaning of drains has been started well ahead of Monsoon this year and one round of de-silting has already been completed, Leader of MCD House Subhash Arya said.

"We have started de-silting of the drains months back, with top priority being given to the areas where the Commonwealth Games stadia are located," the BJP leader said.

Delhi will host the sporting extravaganza from October 3 to 14 this year.

The MCD is procuring special equipments for the purpose and has completed one round of cleaning of all drains of the city in February. The ongoing second round will be completed in June, officials said. There are 1505 drains in Delhi.

"We have purchased machines like super sucker and JCB and order for procurement of a few more machines has already been placed," Arya said. One super-sucker machine costs over Rs1 crore.

For better coordination and more effective de-silting of drains, the civic body has transferred all the works of cleaning of drains to the Department of Environment Management Services (DEMS) in three municipal zones.

"The work of de-silting of drains more than four feet deep in respect of Rohini, Najafgarh and Narela zones has been delinked from the engineering department and has been transferred to the DEMS," Arya said.

He said it will be introduced in other zones keeping in view the administrative requirements for better maintenance and de-silting of drains.