NEW DELHI: Living up to its ill-reputation, the national capital once again was heavily flooded after experiencing it first spell of monsoon showers on Sunday. Despite what the Aam Aadmi Party government claims, the fact remains that water-logging problems continue to persist.
In 2016, a study commissioned by the AAP government regarding the entire existing drainage system of the national capital was carried out by IIT-Delhi. A Drainage Master Plan was compiled which was of the conclusions that the lack of a single institution to manage stormwater drainage was the cause behind constant urban flooding and waterlogging in Delhi.
As per the IIT Delhi report, the national capital has three major drainage basins — Najafgarh, Barapullah and Trans-Yamuna in which more than 200 small and large drains release water.
It says that 10 agencies are responsible for the drainage system, this includes — Irrigation and Flood Control, (Delhi government), Delhi Jal Board (Delhi government), three Municipal Corporations of Delhi, Urban Development, (Delhi government), Ministry of Urban Development, (GoI), New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Delhi Development Authority (GoI), Delhi Cantonment Board, Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation and Public Works Department, (Delhi government).
“Concerning the management of the stormwater drainage system within NCT of Delhi, there is conspicuously, no single institution that bears an overall responsibility of the total system” reads the Master Plan report.
Being a union territory, Delhi has a unique governing structure, “To the contrary, the administrative authority of the capital’s drainage system is quixotically distributed amongst numerous civic bodies and various constituent departments of Government of NCT of Delhi as well as Government of India” added the report.
This setup has left a loophole in the system, where every monsoon each agency blames each other when a problem arises and no single agency alone is held responsible. The report also stated that the existing stormwater drainage system requires re-modelling because rapid urbanisation has changed their design.
The fact remains that even after the AAP government took charge, the situation hasn’t improved much. The same issues persist and the agencies involved have fallen back to the same routine of pinning the blame on one another.
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