Spectre of flooding looms as MCD yet to complete bulk of desilting

New Delhi, July 10 (UNI) The monsoon rains that hit the capital yesterday may have brought cheer to Delhiites but it has raised the spectre of overflowing of drains and floods accompanying the heavy showers.

The danger of flooding in many areas due to the overflowing of drains seems a reality with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is still to complete the process of the desilting of the drains in the capital, even though the monsoon rains arrived after a delay of more than a week.

Leader of the opposition in the MCD Subhash Arya today alleged that notwithstanding claims by the Corporation that it had completed the desilting process in a majority of the drains, a bulk of the desilting still needed to be done.

''Out of the nearly nine lakh metric tonnes of silt in various drains in Delhi, the MCD has till now removed only four lakh MT, which still leaves five lakh MT of silt yet to be removed,'' Mr Arya told mediapersons here.

Claiming tall claims made by the MCD of having completed a major part of the desilting process were only on paper,''nearly 60 per cent of silt in drains in Delhi has still not been removed even though the deadline for the same was June 30. Further, the drains, which the MCD claims to have desilted, have still not been fully cleaned,'' he added.

Mr Arya alleged the huge backlog in the desilting process raised the spectre of flooding in several areas in case of heavy rains due to overflowing of the drains.

However, the MCD authorities claim that desilting in six out of 12 zones of the capital has already been completed.

It said the desilting process had been completed in 1108 out of 1296 drains while in the rest it is expected to complete in the next few days.

Work in only five drains in Central zone, eight in Narela and 25 in Shahdara (N) is yet to start.

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