Come monsoon, city hosts ‘pool parties’ on every road corner

Ludhiana:
Every year, July and August are replete with the same news: the city is submerged in the rain water. Despite that, the authorities fail to take measures to improve the situation. There are some areas which are known for waterlogging but even for that the civic officials have no solution. They blame lack of finances, without which the officials said it is not possible to lay storm sewerage network.
The areas like Damoria bridge, Dholewal Chowk, Panj Peeran road, Hambran road, Chandigarh road, Ferozepur road, National Highway (Amritsar-Delhi), Gill Chowk etc are known for waterlogging. Residents said if these were tackled one at a time, the problem could have beemn solved by now.
A city-based architect and one of the directors of smart city mission, Sanjay Goel, said, “Since my college days, I have been seeing this happen every year. During rainy seasons, roads get flooded, but still the officials have not planned anything to solve these issues.” He claimed that Damoria bridge is a place under railway line where waterlogging is top be expected, but every year the civic body is caught napping, they make no arrangements to drain water out here.
He said if civic body has no technical person available for such things they should hire some experts. “In fact, if you ask me, smart city mission should take up projects aimed at solving this never-ending issue of drainage of rain water instead of making smart areas smarter,” he added.
Meanwhile, Congress councillor Mamta Ashu admitted that waterlogging issue should be studied more carefully as even a drizzle leads to stagnation of water everywhere. She said in the west constituency, they have put rainwater harvesting systems in place since last year and this year they have started getting results — the area saw less waterlogging. “By next year, there will not be any problem,” she said and added that the problem needs innovative and out-o0f-the-box solutions.
Retired superintending engineer of operation and maintenance cell of the civic body, Manjit Singh, said, “Some areas in the city are low lying and some are at higher altitude. So the civic body will have to plan storm sewerage system in phases only. Also, only 75% of the city can be connected to a storm sewerage.”
According to him, money is a huge issue. He recalls the time when the civic body was trying to instal a storm water drain at Dholewal Chowk and Gill road. “But it fell through as money was a major issue,” Singh added.
Present superintending engineer of operation and maintenance cell, Ravinder Garg, said, “Ours is not a planned city and due to haphazard development, everything is not systematic so problem arises time and again. For drainage of rainwater, we require separate storm sewerage, which is a major project.”
Municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal said, “The catchment area will be waterlogged, nobody can stop it. But we have installed generators for motors this time so that even if there are power cuts, we could drain out water. This is the reason water is getting drained out quickly, this time.”