DELHI FLOODS- An Annual Exercise

WOUNDS? OF DELHI

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1.Delhi may be the only capital in the world which is having two oxymorons, yearly on regular basis that is every year without exception Delhi is facing the severe water crisis in summer? and in the same year? Delhi is facing the flooding in various parts of the capital in monsoon season. The biggest irony is that this scene is repeating in the past for at least 30 to 40 years and the interesting aspect is that nobody is bothered or thought about a solution of this problem.

2. In summer season? the widow breast beating is the order of the day for the sufferings of the people of Delhi by acute shortage of water and the oft repeated argument by the ?administration? is that Haryana is not releasing the water in the river Yamuna from Hathinikund barrage,? thereby there is no solution other than raising accusing finger at Haryana government and this argument fits very well for the politicians to play blame game by accusing other government and soon the Delhi government develops a DNA ( Do Nothing Attitude).

3.The other reasons oft repeated is that suitable water supply? pipe network is not available which ?has to be developed to ensure a study water supply to all parts of Delhi. Is this problem? so great that we have to call the World Bank/United Nations Engineers to design the pipe network. This scenario has become a sort of a dark room complete pitch dark? in which the? people? try ?to search the exit but they end up in hitting each other and finding no solution at all. This problem gets automatically solved by the arrival of rainy season and the rains automatically solve the water crisis. We, the people of India take a pride as if we made? herculean efforts to solve the water crisis.

4.The rainy season no doubt solves the problem of water crisis but it develops some other problem and that is the flooding of various parts of Delhi regularly on yearly basis without exception and one such example is Minto bridge flooding which is? blamed as bad design by the administration but the responsibles do? ?not take any action? which results into the traffic snarls up in both directions and the Delhi chokes up.

5.The problem of drainage system is that it either discharges in open drains or drainage ?pipe network which is not sufficient to take care of the rainfall or they are poorly designed and this woefully neglect results into the choking up of the drainage system.

6. First let us discuss the water supply, in Delhi there are only three solution or sources of water. First is the water from Yamuna , Second is the water from Ganga Canal and third is the underground water, each is afflicted by its own problems and diseases.

7. The Yamuna water problems are;

(a) The water flow in Yamuna to Delhi is controlled by Hathinikund Barrage in Haryana often lands up in political squabbles between, Delhi Govt and Haryana Govt which has become annual feature and the interesting part is that Central Government become the mute spectator. The only ray of hope of any solution of this problem is when Delhi Govt and Haryana Govt are ruled by the same political party and if this is not so then Delhi people are left to the mercy of God and sometimes, Delhi people put the blames on their Karmas and past life deeds so they had to suffer and in some cases, Delhi people starts doing the Havans and Pujas to propitiate the Rain Gods.

(b) The Delhi govt fails miserably to clean Yamuna and discharge the complete sewage in the Yamuna river even untreated sewage which has become a regular practice rather than exception. Nobody talks and are afraid of the real issues which are that the complete flood basin is occupied by Bangladeshis and Rohangyas who are illegally settlers/occupant through political machinations and our own Deshdrohis who arrange their Aadhaar cards and other legal papers. The entire sewage loads of these people are discharged into river Yamuna.

(c) The efficiency of water treatment plants are sub optimal to the extent that the water treatment plants are badly maintained and sometimes not working at all. These water treatment plants are corroded and do not have a system of annual maintenance and also their capacity is not matching with the required volume of water. Unfortunately, the only solution which are thought of? by incompetent water Engineers is to mix heavy dose of Chlorination which has its own ?serious health repercussions.

(d) The second source of water is Ganga Canal at Muradnagar which is brought to Delhi and Noida areas which is also not sufficient today for bulging population. Also this pipeline is maintained so badly that it leaks at joints heavily? in the ?summer and losing the precious water.

(e) Since the part of Delhi is? situated on a rocky strata thereby largely the water table is very deep or absent altogether therefore this source of water is almost dried up to the extent that the water table depth has gone to 400-450 ft already. The only solution is having few deep bores into the water table? which may be very deep and require the heavy dose of energy to pump out the water and secondly in the large areas, the water table is either very very deep or non existent.

7.The other parts of Delhi is situated on alluvial plains where the depth of water table has gone to 400-450 ft as already explained in last paragraph where it has become almost impossible to pump out the water and that too at the cost of heavy expenditure on the energy cost on deep water pumps.

8.Secondly we will discuss the Drainage problems. The drainage is oftenly taken care of by ;

1. Open drains nallas.

This drainage system has been proved time and again its failure to drain out the water because of three reasons;

A.Heavy siltation and silt deposit- The rainwater brings itself lot of silt and its get deposited and on top of it no foolproof arrangements exists of silt removal and cleaning of mud and garbage and its suitable disposal.

B. Its outfall itself is chocked by garbage so there is no drain out arrangements.

C. For free flow of water, suitable slope is required. For so many years the care full maintenance of gradient has been abandoned.

2. Underground storm water drainage system.

This drainage system also has been proved? its futility ?to drain out the water because of three reasons;

A. Improper design

The storm water pipes drainage needs very carefully planning taking into? considerations of rainfall intensity, total rainfall, land use having bearings on water percolation. Since the land use has been changing very rapidly, the pipe network also need frequent reviews which is a rare occurrence in the present administrative and political system.

B.Heavy siltation and silt deposit- The rainwater brings itself lot of silt and its get deposited in pipes and on top of it no foolproof arrangements of silt removal and cleaning of mud and garbage and its suitable disposal. The pipe network is always designed a gravity flow system therefore its suitable cleaning and maintenance of proper grade is of utmost importance.

C.Premonsoon inspection;- To ensure proper drainage and free flow, the pre monsoon inspection and repair system is totally absent. Also all the drainage pumps needs inspection, maintenance and replacement as a annual maintenance system which is absent today.

D. Its outfall itself is chocked by garbage so there is no drain out arrangements.

E. For free flow of water, suitable slope is required. For so many years the carefull maintenance of gradient has been abandoned.

3. Pounding in open reservoirs.- All low lying areas and ponds had been used as a suitable drainage of rainwater, filled up, and sold to realters and the natural drainage system has been massacered. Still we can mark the various spots as artificial lakes for water pounding and groundwater? recharging.

4.Realtime or afterward percolation to the water table.- The modern thinking of paving every inches of ground surface played a havoc with nature. On one side, it prevents the water percolation to the water table and on another side it creates the water pounding at several place.

5.The Delhi administration miserably failed to introduce the legislation? in the permission to the real state developers for rain water injection for ground water recharging and also did not care for its strict implementation. This resulted into pounding of rainwater at various locations.

Most Interesting Developments

As a practice, the drain cleaning contracts are floated in the months of February-Match which takes 2-3 months for finalisation. The contractors cleans some drains and deposit the silt on its side and then wait for monsoon without its disposal. Every year all the silt removal bills are made and paid religiously at the start of monsoon but the reality is that the removed silt which deposited on its banks go again to the drains and all inspecting authorities are taken for granted. The Contractors -babus lobby makes tons of money every year leaving the people of Delhi to suffer and fend for themselves.