The article below was published in the September 2021 issue of Samvada. The recent rainfall has once again exposed the vulnerability and lack of concerted action on the part of authorities. It is therefore being republished to bring back attention to this subject
This story may not capture the travails of our entire colony, but it is a nightmare for at least one resident, Mrs Anuradha Kumar of N 131, and definitely a potential dengue and malaria hazard for residents of N 132 to 138 and maybe even parts of E 1 to 8.
This massive drain passes through the side of Step by Step, the nursery school that was set up sometime in the early 1990s on DDA land. It is behind N 132 to 138 whose fronts face the outer ring road.
It appears that, at some stage of the development of this land, the drain got dissociated from the parent drainage system and is no longer connected to it. The nearest main drainage system is operating parallel to the outer ring road and the end of this drain stops around 100 metres from this main drainage system.
It is alleged that there were jhuggis and a pump house on that land and, at the time of clearing these, a lot of malba got into the drain, blocking the regular path of the water. Next to the drain is a large tree whose roots also grew over time and went into the drain, blocking it further.
The drain became an eye sore, smelly and mosquito breeding as a result of these. It seems that some private efforts were made by the residents of N 132 and 134 to cover up part of the drain that overlooks these two houses. This stopped only part of the problem but the major issue of the drain having no real outlet, the breeding of mosquitoes, and the stench remained. Unfortunately, one of its outlets appears to be flowing into N 131, the house adjoining Step by Step.
Now, whenever there is a significant amount of rain, this water overflows into the parking lot of Step by Step, onto the road opposite N 140 and, last but not the least, actually floods the entire garden and one of the rooms of N 131 that is adjoining the school wall (see pictures). This room has wooden flooring, and this is causing short & long-term damage, besides the harassment to residents.
This year has seen one of the worst rainfalls. The school is unfortunately shut due to the pandemic and therefore not as impacted but residents like Mrs Kumar certainly are.
What needs to be done is to dig all the way from the beginning of this drain to the service lane facing the outer ring road and connect the two.
The million-dollar question is to fix the accountability of this action. It should ideally be the DDA that owns the land. It seems that the expense to deal with this would be high and the number of houses that are impacted are a handful. It therefore remains an unresolved affair till, perhaps, the management of Step by Step gets into its resolution with the authorities.
One fears the day this issue creates a problem for the children of the school who play in the park during the daytime in the rainy season next year when it could be breeding mosquitoes. There is still time to deal with this issue provided someone takes a stand and gets the authorities to take notice of the matter.
