Fastest to flood but no relief for years for this Delhi-Jaipur highway village

GURGAON: Every time it rains, the service road along the Delhi-Jaipur highway at Narsinghpur village is one of the first areas in the city to get flooded. Water eventually spills over to the highway.
A geographic undulation puts it at a disadvantage – the area is the city’s lowest point, and water, naturally, flows towards it.

Still, it isn’t a problem that can’t be resolved. What it needs is a drainage revamp, which hasn’t happened for years, leaving residents and commuters to wade through knee-deep waters after every spell of rain.
A surface drain is currently the only water outlet running between the highway and the service road.
After showers over the past few days, MCG, GMDA and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) installed seven pumps to drain out water, but neither of these can make a lasting difference if there isn’t a stormwater drain to channel this water to.
Though the highway was last widened in 2008, a stormwater drain wasn’t built at the time. NHAI decided in 2022 to construct a drain along the highway, but construction is yet to start and will take at least a year to complete.
GMDA officials also said on Monday that they are working on a proposal to set up a pumping station in the low-lying area. But they have to decide where the water – once collected – will be directed to.
There are two options – connecting the station to an under-construction drain that is being installed between Dwarka Expressway and Southern Peripheral Road some 2.5km away, or the existing Badshapur drain a kilometre away from Narsinghpur.
“For Narsinghpur, we are considering a pumping station that would need to be connected to a main drain. We are working out the modalities and will soon finalise the proposal after discussing it with NHAI and MCG,” said GMDA chief engineer Rajesh Bansal.
Either way, relief is unlikely in the coming monsoon, with no work having begun for the pumping station and the drain.
On Monday, water pumps and an earthmover had been deployed to clear even the surface drain, which was clogged with waste.
Asked why it was taking so long for plans to come into shape, officials said a tentative solution was identified just last year.
“Pumps can only work if water can be channeled out quickly to the stormwater drains. The main issue that should be looked into is that there are no clear disposal points for water from Narsinghpur even if a drain is built here. Badshapur drain is also running over capacity. Other problems are the faulty drain design and encroachment of the drains, which causes flooding,” an NHAI official said, requesting anonymity.
A GMDA official, too, said that the most realistic option may be to channel water from Narsinghpur to the Dwarka Expressway drain, but that is still under-construction.
“So a connecting drain in Narsinghpur can only be made after the construction of the cloverleaf along Dwarka Expressway is completed,” the official added.