Blame game begins over Delhi's rain woes
August 03, 2007
The day after one spell of heavy rain left the Indian capital flooded,
choked its roads and halted rail services, all the civic agencies
have started blaming one another for the mess.
Delhi battled with incessant
rainfall - 185.2 mm between Wednesday and Friday - and all the civic
bodies said they had done their job and each of them held another
agency responsible for the chaos.
Qamar Ahmed, joint commissioner of police (traffic) said that the
Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), New
Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Public Works Department
(PWD) were answerable for Delhi's water logging woes.
"If the roads are filled with water and filth, then where
will the traffic go? There are bound to be traffic jams and chaos
on the roads." Ahmed said.
Vijendra Gupta, chairman of MCD's standing committee, would not
be held responsible for the mayhem, however.
"It was not MCD's fault. We just received a report of the
places that were waterlogged after yesterday's rainfall. There were
47 points mentioned of which 32 are under the PWD. Only six points
were under the MCD.
"Last year 88 points were waterlogged of which 47 were under
the PWD while 26 were under the MCD. Since then we have done a lot
of work, de-silting and all. The actual problem lies with the other
departments," Gupta told IANS.
When asked about the Najafgarh drain that was overflowing, Gupta
said the flood and irrigation department had not maintained it properly.
"It is the flood and irrigation department's responsibility.
Since they did not maintain it, the drain started overflowing. As
a result of this, the water flowed back into the MCD drains. The
MCD is doing everything it can to avoid such chaos," he said.
Delhi Mayor Arti Mehra acknowledged that the problem was multi-rooted.
"We had a meeting yesterday with Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
We said that the water logging in various parts of the city was
not entirely our fault and she agreed.
"It is a problem which has to be looked at by all concerned
agencies - the MCD, PWD and NDMC. It has to be a collective effort,"
Mehra stressed.
According to her, of the 11 problem points discussed in the meeting,
10 were the PWD's responsibility and they had to take care of them.
"Dwarka, which is under DDA, was in a bad state. The MCD can't
do anything there. Hence it is a joint responsibility," she
added.
M.S. Upadhyay, additional commissioner of police (traffic), said
they had deployed extra police personnel on the roads to avoid traffic
jams.
"We were all on the roads yesterday trying to smoothen the
traffic flow. Beyond this, what can the police do? It's not our
fault," Upadhyay said.
"We are all trying to understand the problem and are doing
crisis management for the next one month. Later a coordination committee
will look into the matter comprehensively," Mehra said.
--- IANS
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