‘Water, water everywhere’: Gurgaon wakes up to flooded homes, uprooted trees

Residents of Sector 45 saw water reaching heights of at least 2 feet on the road, and the drains clogged with silt that the civic body had failed to remove. Similar developments were also reported in [Sectors 14, 21, 31, 41] and Palam Vihar.

Gurgaon Municipal Commissioner Ashok Garg said instructions have been issued to all concerned zonal engineers and staff to look into the complaints and grievances.

Executive Engineer Ajay Panghal said that officials have been directed to visit their areas and put up waterlogging inspection reports with location observations. “The reports will list specific areas with waterlogging issues, causes of waterlogging such as poor drainage, clogged drains, or low-lying areas, their impact, and an assessment of existing infrastructure. Resident welfare associations (RWAs) and officials will take immediate short-term action as well as long-term permanent solutions,” he said.

However, Puneet Pahwa, general secretary of the Sector 45 RWA, lamented that the situation was only a trailer of things to come. “No one can step out of their homes. There is no outlet for the (flood) water. It will take a few days to fully dry up. We are running pillar to post for government action, to no avail. We hope the civic body comes to the rescue,” Pahwa said. He pointed out that the incomplete cleaning of stormwater drains in the area had exacerbated the situation.

“The cleaning of storm water drains started in Sector 45 about 10 days back. It was stopped after 4-5 days. The silt cleaned by the contractor was not removed, and today the silt has gone into the stormwater drains. Poor execution by contractors is draining taxpayers’ money. It is a sad state of affairs,” he added.

Sector 45 RWA president Abhimanyu Yadav said there was immense waterlogging in the area. “It is water, water everywhere, the roads cannot be seen. It is not even the rainy season. [People were forced to skip attending schools and offices, as our drains are still not connected to the main GMDA network]”, Yadav said.

Chaitali Mandhotra, a member of the Ardee City RWA, said that the issues have arisen because of the civic body’s lack of timely completion of works. “Not once has the supersucker machine worked on schedule here. The jetting machine also rarely comes on repeated follow-up. Such nightmares could have been avoided. Before being taken over by Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG), not once did the builder need a jetting machine or supersucker…they did cleaning of gravity tanks throughout the year,” Mandhotra said.

There has been dereliction of duty by the contractors hired by the civic body, she said. “Yaha par MCG me contractor ko sirf payment diya jata hai. Vo kya kar raha hai uska koi matlab nahi (Here, MCG only pays the contractors, it does not care about how they work,” Mandhotra added.

The RWAs have urged the civic body to immediately finish desilting rainwater pipelines and sewerage networks and deploy sump pumps to clear the waterlogging.