NEW DELHI: In a veiled attack on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over his statement about the rain situation in the city, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Tuesday blamed the lack of preparation for the rains. Saxena, who was on inspection of water-logged areas in Delhi, said that natural calamity does not inform in advance and preparations should have been made beforehand to deal with the unprecedented rains.
He said that the city faced the ‘annual ritual’ of waterlogging as drains were not properly de-silted.
“Delhi’s population has risen by 50 lakh since 2014 but planning was not done accordingly for sewer lines and drainage, which has caused waterlogging. The cleaning of drains was not done properly. These have not been done for years, which is why waterlogging happens every time,” he said.
He added, “Desilting of the Yamuna and the Najafgarh drain should be regularly done to increase their water-holding capacity. I will try to see to it that attention is paid to all this so that people don’t have to face such a situation.”
The L-G also took stock of the situation at the Pragati Maidan tunnel, Minto Bridge and the Zakhira underpass which was flooded and closed to traffic due to the heavy rains. Kejriwal said that the city’s drainage system was not designed to take such heavy rains. He also said that the city has received more than 150 mm of rain in 24 hours, which is more than the average annual rainfall. and that this is for the first time in 40 years that Delhi received rainfall of such severity.
Heavy rains over the weekend caused water-logging in various parts of the city prompting authorities to divert traffic from several routes. Many stretches of roads remained underwater on Tuesday as well. Kejriwal called an emergency meeting of officials from all departments on Monday and announced an inquiry into incidents of road cave-in accidents. He, however, said that the roads could have caved in for multiple reasons including poor infrastructure or a burst in the underground pipeline. Meanwhile, the Yamuna River breached the danger mark, following which evacuation of residents in low-lying areas
of the Yamuna floodplains began.