Click to play videoHeavy downpour lashed Mumbai since wee hours on Friday, resulting in severe disruptions in rail, road and air traffic, causing inconvenience to regular commuters and office goers proceeding to their work places.
Delhi experienced a heavy downpour on Thursday. The roads were flooded and traffic was held up for several hours. South Delhi in particular was most affected by 125 ml if rainfall. Trains were also held in the Ghaziabad-New Delhi route due to flooding on tracks.
However, things may have had come to normalcy after the rains stopped but one thing is evident- the rains have returned and they are here to play havoc with the cities. Even 100 ml of rain is enough to put both Delhi and Mumbai out of gear because 40 ml is all that the colonial drainage system can take.
CNN-IBN correspondent Hindol Sengupta reported that on a regular rainy day Mumbai received much more than that also. The government was now planning to spent 12, 000 crore rupees for a complete overhaul of the drainage system.
Owing to the fact that rains can really create havoc and throw life out of gear in the cities, India 360 brought up a question: Why our big cities are not able to handle rain?
To try and answer that question from the Delhi studio was guest RWA president, Anant Trivedi
So why did Delhi get badly affected whenever there was a heavy downpour?
Anant Tivedi said that it was an ongoing cycle every year. “The main problem is that the drainage system is under capacity and they are totally choked. There is not enough planning and the work that is carried out by civic bodies is insufficient,” Trivedi said.
But was there evidence that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was doing enough to address the problems?
Trivedi said that the MCD was not doing anything to address the issue. In fact it had stopped working for the last couple of years.
“It is getting worse every year. We hear about contracts being awarded for the desilting of the drains. In summer, you will see labourers working. They dig the muck out and leave it by the side of the drain. In a due course of time, the muck will flow back to the drain,” Trivedi said.
So Trivedi ultimately suggested that the solution lied only in the higher capacity of the drainage system.
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