With monsoon around the corner, residents of Maharani Bagh area in southeast Delhi have urged civic authorities to expedite work on clearing and redesigning the severely clogged Taimoor Nagar drain before rains begin to lash the city properly.
Residents said that the work to clear the drain began in phases, but the pendency of work will aggravate the waterlogging problem during rains. Parts of Friends Colony, New Friends Colony and Maharani Bagh have their drainage outfall in the Taimoor Nagar drain, which then meets the Yamuna. The Maharani Bagh RWA, in an official statement, said the stormwater drain in Maharani Bagh is facing a critical situation that poses significant risks to the health and safety of residents.
Shiv Mehra, president of the Maharani Bagh RWA, and a resident of Eastern Avenue Road, said that the runoff from the area ends up in the Taimoor Nagar drain. “Since there is no proper flow of wastewater, there is backflow of sewage in the Maharani Bagh drainage system during monsoon,” Mehra said.
He added that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had started the work to clear the drain, but it was too late. “The work is still incomplete and the drain remains filled with large clumps of silt excavated from the drain bed. Our drainage system is already filled to the brim with sewage and one heavy shower will lead to overflow,” Mehra said.
HT reached out to the MCD official overseeing the work but he did not respond to queries seeking comments.
An annual problem
Sewage waterlogging is an annual problem in the area. Two slums are located along the drain, while the urban village occupies the other side. The urban village is surrounded by DDA colonies and planned colonies. All the underground drainage pipelines in the nearby colonies end up in what is supposed to be a 20-foot drain abutting the Eastern Avenue Road. This drain, however, progressively gets narrower, reduced to a width of barely 4-5 feet near the slums of Taimoor Nagar due to accumulated filth and unchecked encroachments — creating a massive chokepoint resulting in water flowing back into the colonies from where it originated. The civic body then begins to pump out the water.
The open drain, called Taimoor Nagar nullah, runs parallel to the village. During a spot check on Thursday, silt and garbage from the nullah had been partly excavated and stashed along the lane, leaving a narrow opening for the sewage water to pass through. However, the situation remained unchanged further down, where the drain was still replete with trash and plastic material.
Repair work too slow
Anuj Kumar Rawla, another resident of the area, MCD’s work has been progressing at a snail’s pace. “The drain covers around 1km from Taimoor Nagar to the floodplains. The drain width around the Taimoor Nagar is heavily encroached and people throw garbage in it. The narrow outfall of this drain is the reason behind annual flooding in our area. MCD wanted to create a passage of water with pipes that would be unaffected by silt and waste in the 250m section. However, the project is nowhere near completion,” said Rawla.
Amitosh Moitra, a resident of Western Avenue Road, said that the water level in the drain of Maharani Bagh is bursting at the seams. “This is because the flow downstream has been forcefully constricted by MCD due to ongoing work. If the flow is not normalised and the water level not allowed to recede, the colony risks a massive overflow during monsoons,” he said.
Rajpal, the local MCD councillor and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader said the speed of the work was very slow. “I have raised this issue eight times in the House and even met the commissioner. The drain-clearing work can not be completed at this pace,” he said, adding that the backflow from this drain affects the belt from Sriniwaspuri, Garhi, Friends Colony and Maharani Bagh.