Traffic snarls, waterlogging as monsoon hits Delhi

Commuters coming from West Delhi may take left turn from Inderlok and turn towards Ring Road via Keshavpuram, Britannia Chowk, it said in one of the tweets.PWD officials said the waterlogging complaints were dealt with on a priority basis.Our field staff, along with senior engineers, immediately swung into action and removed water from the roads, a PWD official told PTI.Archana Bagga, a bank officer, said it took her an hour and a half to reach her office located near the Central Secretariat from Noida.The traffic was heavier compared to other days.

As Delhi received its first monsoon showers on Thursday, several areas, including the newly-inaugurated Pragati Maidan tunnel, ITO, Ring Road, the Barapullah corridor, the Delhi-Meerut expressway and Sarai Kale Khan, witnessed waterlogging leading to massive traffic snarls.

Commuters and patients had a harrowing time as traffic crawled on several key stretches due to waterlogging even as videos purportedly showed ambulances stuck on an inundated road stretch near the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Due to waterlogging, the traffic police had to shut the Pul Prahladpur underpass for vehicular movement on the Mehrauli-Badarpur road.

According to the civic body and the Public Works Department (PWD), waterlogging was witnessed at around 60-70 locations across the city.

PWD officials said 230 calls were received at its control room regarding waterlogging.

The newly-inaugurated Pragati Maidan tunnel reported waterlogging in the morning, belying the PWD's claims that the facility is equipped with modern features to avoid water accumulation.

Traffic moved at a slow pace due to waterlogging in the tunnel, which connects India Gate with Ring Road.

Border points, especially the Delhi-Noida border, the Chilla border, the Uttar Pradesh Gate and the Delhi-Gurugram road, experienced huge traffic snarls.

Other areas that witnessed waterlogging included the Delhi-Meerut expressway near Vinod Nagar, the Pul Prahladpur underpass, the Rao Tula Ram flyover, Sadar Bazar, the AIIMS underpass, Aurobindo Marg, Bhagwandas Road, Vikas Marg, near the Chirag Delhi flyover, Som Bazar Najafgarh, the Zakhira underpass, the Jahangirpuri metro station, the Loni Road roundabout, GK-2, Panchkuian Road, the Azadpur market underpass and Rohtak Road.

People posted videos and pictures of waterlogged streets, markets and colonies on social media platforms.

The videos purportedly showed the Rao Tula Ram flyover in south Delhi heavily inundated and vehicles wading through the water.

In another video, an ambulance was seen stranded in traffic on a waterlogged street near the AIIMS underpass.

Another picture showed a cluster bus stranded with its wheels submerged in water on National Highway-9 (the Delhi-Meerut expressway), near West Vinod Nagar.

However, PTI could not independently confirm the veracity of the videos and pictures.

In a series of tweets, the Delhi Traffic Police informed the commuters about waterlogging and traffic snarls.

It reported heavy traffic on Aurobindo Marg (from the IIT to Adhchini, both carriageways), MB road (from the Khanpur T-point to the Tughlaqabad fort, both carriageways) and Outer Ring Road (from Chirag Delhi to the Savitri flyover) in South district.

It also informed the commuters that vehicular movement was affected on Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Setu (the Barapullah corridor), in the carriageways going from the Lodhi underpass and the AIIMS towards Sarai Kale Khan and DND due to waterlogging.

The traffic movement was restricted at the railway underpass in Pul Prahladpur and both the carriageways were closed due to waterlogging, the traffic police said.

''Movement of traffic has been restricted at Anand Parbat T-point, Zakhira underpass Inderlok. Both the carriageways are closed due to waterlogging. Commuters coming from West Delhi may take left turn from Inderlok and turn towards Ring Road via Keshavpuram, Britannia Chowk,'' it said in one of the tweets.

PWD officials said the waterlogging complaints were dealt with on a priority basis.

''Our field staff, along with senior engineers, immediately swung into action and removed water from the roads,'' a PWD official told PTI.

Archana Bagga, a bank officer, said it took her an hour and a half to reach her office located near the Central Secretariat from Noida.

''The traffic was heavier compared to other days. There were traffic snarls at the Noida-Delhi border, the Delhi-Meerut expressway and the Pragati Maidan tunnel near India Gate. It usually takes me 45-50 minutes to reach office, but it took me an hour and a half to reach work on Thursday,'' she told PTI.

Rohit Sethi also narrated a similar tale and said he was stuck in traffic for 15-20 minutes on the Delhi-Meerut expressway.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said monsoon arrived in Delhi on Thursday, yielding the season's first spell of heavy rain that provided respite from the oppressive heat and covered the precipitation deficit.

Most parts of the capital reported moderate to heavy rainfall, IMD officials said.

The PWD has set up a Central Control Room from where 10 critical waterlogging sites are being monitored 24x7 through CCTV cameras.

Earlier this month, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said the Delhi government is ready to combat waterlogging on a war-footing and is focussing on solving the problem with micro planning.

After Thursday's waterlogging, Sisodia said a strict vigil of the waterlogging-prone areas should be ensured by all the agencies concerned.

He directed officials to identify the areas that were inundated and fix the issues to ensure that such scenes are not repeated.

Sisodia also asked the officials to submit an action-taken report.

The deputy chief minister released the Flood Control Order, 2022 that contains the contact numbers of all the agencies concerned and enumerates the steps to be taken to avoid waterlogging.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)