Delhi: Heavy showers bring traffic to a standstill

Despite rain, the weather remained muggy most of the day, with the maximum temperature touching 36.5 degrees Celsius, two degrees above normal, and humidity between 55% and 100%.

The heavy rain also laid threadbare the Delhi government and municipal corporations’ claims of successful desilting. Waterlogging was seen in areas such as Aurobindo Marg, Adchini, Deoli and Khanpur. At ITO, waterlogging lead to long traffic snarls.

Traffic officials said diversions had to be made to maintain the flow of cars. “We had a tough time diverting traffic in Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg to Katwariya Sarai and Vedanta More to Adchini, due to waterlogging,” said an official.

In East Delhi, there were complaints of waterlogging in Geeta Colony, New Ashok Nagar and Mayur Vihar. Nitish Parashar, who was travelling from Britannia Chowk to Raja Garden, said, “The distance that is covered in 15 minutes took more than 40 minutes due to breakdown of a vehicle.”

There were also complaints of waterlogging in internal roads in areas like Lado Sarai, Saket, New Ashok Nagar, Jhilmil. A senior MCD official said that most complaints they received were of PWD roads. A senior PWD official said that they had received several complaints and officials were ordered to go to affected spots to pump the water out.

In Gurgaon, IFFCO Chowk underpass hit

Several parts of Gurgaon experienced waterlogging on Sunday afternoon, following 2mm of rainfall over less than an hour, with traffic police personnel being deployed in the affected areas to handle vehicular movement. Officials said the right-turn underpass at IFFCO Chowk junction, which was opened to commuters in March, was among the affected areas.

“Around 2-2.5 feet of water collected in the underpass. However, it was drained out within 5-10 minutes, as the pump sets installed were

automatically activated,” said Saurabh Singhal, team leader and traffic transportation expert at Bloom Companies LLC, the NHAI consultant for the underpass.

“The issue at the underpass is, whenever there is heavy rain in Aravallis, water reaches IFFCO Chowk via Sikanderpur and Ghata. But we have installed two pumps to deal with such a situation,” he said. Other waterlogged areas included Basai village, Sikanderpur, Jawala Mill road, MG road, and AIT Chowk.

“Traffic cops were deployed… There was congestion in areas, but no traffic jams,” said Gurgaon Police PRO Subhash Boken.