Showers bring relief but wash away govt’s claims

While the pre-monsoon showers brought some relief from the heat and humidity on Wednesday, they also brought trouble for commuters. During the evening peak hours, waterlogged roads brought the traffic to a halt at many key stretches in the national Capital.  

The rains also washed away the claims made by the Delhi government and the municipal corporations ahead of the season, about their monsoon preparedness and the de-silting of drains.  

Major traffic snarls were witnessed at south Delhi’s AIIMS flyover, RTR flyover, Ashram Chowk, Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, Aurobindo Marg, and Nehru Place, among others. RTR is the key link connecting to the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), and vehicles were stuck for around 25-30 minutes at Subrato Park near the Army Research and Referral Hospital. 

“Vehicles piled up near the RTR flyover. It was a nightmare. One of the vehicles broke down on the single-lane flyover and it took at least 40 minutes to clear the way so that other vehicles could move,” said Chandan Malhotra, who was coming from the airport to Nehru Place. 

Both the Ring Road and the Outer Ring road — the lifeline stretches of the city — witnessed extremely slow movement of traffic, resulting in massive jams. The other key routes that were affected included Vikas Marg, Lakshmi Nagar, Dwarka underpass, Nirankari Road, Tilak Bridge, Kahsmere Gate, and Punjabi Bagh flyover. 

The Public Works Department (PWD) and the civic agencies concerned blamed the situation on not being able to clean the big drains, which have started overflowing. 

Earlier this week, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that the city needed a separate body for the cleaning of drains, which becomes a major issue every monsoon. 

Also, the PWD, which had identified around 30 waterlogging-prone stretches, had claimed to install 1,000 pumps to drain out the water.