First long spell of monsoon brought misery for Nagpurians on Tuesday, as road after road, lane after lane, subway after subway were off the limits for traffic, as they simply failed to withstand the deluge and got submerged. The rains that battered city throughout the day exposed tall claims of the administration’s preparedness for the monsoon. The pre-monsoon exercise of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) either failed to anticipate such deluge or took Nagpurians’ patience for granted. Hence the city administration’s short sightedness or aloofness sort of marooned the citizens, leaving them to fend for themselves.

 

Time has now come for a relook at the annual drainage and nullah cleaning exercise of Nagpur Municipal Corporation, as same is inter alia failing to cope with excess rains during shorter duration. Arguably the city’s drainage network is not meant to handle such long spell of rains, yet, what was visible to the naked eye was much more of absence of planning while laying roads in the city, said Rajgopal who was at odds to understand the situation in Manish Nagar area. Take an example of situation in Jai Durga Layout and adjoining Nagar Vikas Society, there is total absence of drainage network. At Jai Durga Layout, the concrete road level is not aligned with nearby drain, so water remains accumulated on the road after every spell of rain. The level of road is adjusted in a twisted manner, it slopes off towards the adjoining road instead of the side drain, leading towards garden leading to cutting of the access for citizens as the stretch ahead is slightly upwards.

 

So there is no way the water could drain off. Narendra Nagar: Similar situation was witnessed in Narendra Nagar, as one could barely notice availability of drain. One could see long line of vehicles lined-up on either side of the road as citizens remained stranded as the mid point of the road is low-lying and no steps were taken to raise it. This stretch connects emerging Jai Durga Layout, Manish Nagar, Besa-Beltarodi with Chhatrapati Nagar via Narendra Nagar. During the laying of concrete road, citizens in the area expected the planners to address the situation, but somehow no steps were taken despite knowledge of absence of drainage. Rajnagar: Tuesday’s rain also exposed the shoddy work carried out by NMC as residents of Rajnagar faced severe situation as their homes were flooded. Ajay Mrig, one of the sufferer, said NMC carried out two work to resolve the water logging issue, but instead of improving the situation the problem became even more severe.

 

Vijay Nayudu, President of the NMC Contractors’ Welfare Association, said the civic body officials overlooked the technical solution to the problem to and merely processed superficial work without addressing the root cause of the problem. Such problem have become symptomatic in the second capital of State wherein politicians and planners are pitching for overhaul of the development process with big ticket projects, but on ground people feel real issues are getting brushed under the carpet. As is well known the big problem with the city is railway line bisecting the city with the new areas. So notwithstanding millions of funds invested in new age development, the citizens still have to struggle with commute during rains. Despite being dubbed as fly-over city, the people of Nagpur it seems are destined to battle the absence of basic planning, rued the citizens who were are at sea again after rains.

 

 

Crores of rupees was spent on preventing water logging on Ring Road stretch near Swalambi Nagar, but the money seems to have gone down the drain as authorities were forced to deployed speed boats to rescue stranded citizens. PWD executed a work to lay pipeline to lift water from Swalambi Nagar all the way for transport to Narendra Nagar. But it seems the work is not yet complete, or due to defects PWD now carrying out rectification. For citizens however the situation turned tricky as the deluge of Tuesday put them in spot. Water gushed into homes due to raising of height of road post concretisation. Residents in Narendra Nagar too faced a similar situation as water damaged household furniture due to flooding of low-lying localities.