Early rains: Delhiites ready, not city drains

NEW DELHI: The good news is that hot and humid Delhi may get monsoon rains from June 15, a full 12 days ahead of the normal date.
If the forecast proves accurate, it would be the earliest monsoon onset in the capital in 13 years. The bad news? The city may find itself inundated because the civic agencies have still not finished the desilting of the capital’s drainage network, with officials reporting that 30%-40% of drain clearing work is pending at many locations.

The PWD, which is responsible for the condition of Delhi’s big drains, has completed clearing the silt from 60% of the network so far. "The work was affected due to the pandemic. Now that the monsoon has advanced, we will increase the manpower significantly from Monday onwards to finish the remaining work," a PWD official assured.
30-40% desilting pending in many areas, capital stares at waterlogging
The municipal corporations oversee the maintenance of the smaller drains, and all three have claimed at least 60% of work completion, with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation even asserting it has achieved 107% of the desilting target. The normal desilting deadline for agencies is June 15, but work in the past two years has been impacted by the Covid lockdowns.
The official desilting report from the engineering department of East Delhi Municipal Corporation shows that just over 35% of the work still is pending, with Shahdara North zone especially vulnerable as only 51% of the work has been completed there till June 11. The civic body has taken out 29,689 metric tonnes of silt from 219 drains against the target of 46,086 tonnes. Of the drains under EDMC’s jurisdiction, 149 have been cleared and work is under way in 70 others.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is responsible for 192 drains of a cumulative length of 108km, claimed to have achieved 88% of the target. Mayor Jai Prakash said that following the forecast of an early monsoon, he has called a review meeting on preparedness so that the remaining work can be expedited and vulnerable spots covered. “We will also pursue the matter with other agencies because most of the municipal drains have outfalls into major drains managed by PWD and the irrigation & flood control department,” he said.
Amazing as it sounds, SDMC has asserted it has accomplished 107% of the desilting target over 188.4km of drains it maintains. The civic agency reported that till June 10, 29,606 MT of silt had been removed from its 272 drains. The lofty claims will soon be tested once the rains start.
The multiplicity of agencies with jurisdiction over Delhi’s drainage network has often been blamed for the annual urban flooding. Municipal corporations largely manage the smaller drains in residential areas, while PWD carries out maintenance of drains along wider roads. Other agencies like I&FC department manage 426km of much larger drains. Bodies like DDA, DSIIDC and Delhi Cantonment Board also have some drainage network under them.