Civic body not to blame for chaos after rains, says Delhi mayor

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which was blamed by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Tuesday for the chaos in the national capital after heavy rains Monday, sought to pass the responsibility to other agencies.

"Unfortunately, time and again, we are being blamed even for the problems that are happening in Public Work Department (PWD) and New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) areas and roads although we have no control over them," Delhi Mayor Kanwar Sain said in a letter to the chief minister.

He said Delhi received the highest rainfall Monday evening since 2006.

"The MCD, after learning from its past experiences, took all necessary steps, such as desilting of drains and checking sensitive points for waterlogging, due to which the menace of waterlogging was tackled to a large extent in most of the MCD areas."

"But most of the sensitive points on the Ring Road, Outer Ring Road, other PWD roads as well as prominent NDMC areas such as India Gate, Connaught Place and Chanakyapuri faced severe waterlogging, causing huge traffic jams, breakdown of vehicles and inconvenience to the citizens of Delhi."

He said he had requested Dikshit to direct the heads of departments concerned to ask the officials responsible why there was so much waterlogging on these roads.

Dikshit had slammed the MCD for the chaos of Monday night. "They need to tell us what have they done as they are responsible for providing civic facilities.”

Leader of Opposition in MCD Jai Kishan Sharma also blasted the MCD for its inefficient handling of desilting and cleaning of drains. "The main cause of water stagnation was that neither the drains were desilted nor bell-mouths and gully-gratings on roadsides cleaned."

Sharma said that despite purchase of two super sucker machines at the cost of Rs.10 crore, the entire city was drowned in rain water Monday night.

In a letter to Delhi Police Commissioner Y.S. Dadwal, the mayor alleged that the traffic policemen were absent from Delhi's roads during the heavy rainfall Monday evening.

"Most of the traffic lights were not working and, therefore, police officials should have been present at the sensitive areas where jams were likely to occur, but unfortunately none of them was there. This led to huge traffic jams, snarl and chaos on the roads. Whenever such kind of situation arises, traffic police officials, instead of being more active, disappear from the site," he said in his letter.

Meanwhile, MCD Commissioner K.S.Mehra asked senior officers to personally ensure that no waterlogging takes place. Deputy commissioners, chief engineers, superintending engineers, executive engineers and other officials should be there in the field during heavy rains to oversee the arrangements, he said.

Last updated on Jul 28^th, 2009 at 21:24 pm IST--IANS