Why water entered Delhi’s Ring Road, Civil Lines: Broken regulator, barrage clogged with silt
According to Delhi Disaster Management Authority officials, a regulator at Indraprastha Metro Station, which had not been used or maintained for several years, collapsed because of its poor condition as well as the strong water pressure and inundated the Ring Road.
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Traffic came to a halt after water breached the Ring Road. Tashi Tobgyal A water regulator at Indraprastha Metro Station that collapsed and caused flood water to flow into the Ring Road, a barrage whose gates are stuck because of silt and a river that has not been dredged in decades — behind flooding in Delhi is a combination of factors that led water to enter areas that haven’t seen flooding in close to half a century.
According to Delhi Disaster Management Authority officials, a regulator at Indraprastha Metro Station, which had not been used or maintained for several years, collapsed because of its poor condition as well as the strong water pressure and inundated the Ring Road.
If the breach is not repaired soon, DDMA officials said, water is expected to flow towards Mathura Road and the Supreme Court. “There is a drain at the Metro station, on which an STP is built to make sure sewage and dirty water does not enter the river. A regulator has also been placed on the drain but this has not been used in a long time as the need never arose. It comes under the Irrigation and Flood Control Department. Now that the issue has been identified, it will be fixed soon,” he said.
Police said houses and shops were submerged. Tashi Tobgyal
The Delhi government said the regulator was damaged around 7 pm Thursday. “The damage caused to the regulator has resulted in Yamuna flood water flowing towards the city as its backflow… Officials are working on reinforcing the area near the regulator to stop the flow of water into the city,” an official statement said.
Delhi water minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, meanwhile, said five gates of the barrage at ITO, which is operated by the Haryana government, were jammed due to accumulating silt and were hindering the flow of water. There are a total of 32 gates, officials said. Once the gates are opened, water coming from Wazirabad flows under the gates towards the Okhla barrage and onwards to Uttar Pradesh.
Waterlogging was seen along the road leading to the ISBT. Amit Mehra
“We are making continuous efforts to open these gates. To remove silt accumulated around the gates, a compressor has been brought from the Kondli plant. The silt will be cleared using the compressor, and then attempts will be made to open the gates. If the gates still do not open, they will be cut using gas cutters to facilitate the water’s faster exit from Delhi,” Bhardwaj said.
Officials in the Haryana government, however, said that all gates were open. “The highest discharge passed smoothly without any hindrance. There was no back flow at ITO barrage and there was no hindrance to free flow of Yamuna. DJB must have held a meeting of the flood control board; if there was a problem of silt, they should have highlighted it in advance instead of shifting the blame on Haryana,” the officer said.
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