PWD responsible for waterlogging at Minto Road, Shivaji bridge, says N Delhi Mayor

Mayor of North Delhi Adesh Gupta has alleged that waterlogging at Shivaji Bridge and Minto Road is a result of negligence of Public Work Department (PWD) as it failed to clean drains in their jurisdiction despite repeated request by the North Corporation.

He said that that corporation drains has outflow in drains maintained by PWD. “In this case, it becomes indispensible for all the civic agencies in the city to work in coordination and desilt their drains before monsoon to avoid waterlogging,” he said.

Gupta further advised officials of PWD to do its work properly instead of making excuses and passing the buck on municipal corporations.

He also informed that the north corporation tried its best to ensure that there should be no waterlogging in this monsoon. For this purpose, the corporation called all department meetings on various occasions. However, officials of PWD did not take those meeting seriously and sent junior officers to attend the same who had no information of the work done by them,” he said.

A senior corporation official said that to ensure a better coordination among various civic agencies and to avoid blame game, the civic body  brought all the stakeholders responsible for maintenance of civic amenities in the city on a single platform to discuss the issues and work in “tandem” but the drains of PWD was not desilted resulted in heavy water-logging.

It may be noted that drains in the city are maintained by the Public Works' Department (PWD), Irrigation and Flood departments of the Delhi Government and the three municipal corporations.

Every year, the city witnesses heavy water-logging and agencies pass the buck to shrug off their responsibilities knowing well that vector-borne diseases proliferate during rainy season as water accumulates in part of the city owing to choked drains.