With the return of the monsoon season, the worries of the residents of Kalindi Colony are back. Residents of the area claimed that over the past two-and-a-half decades, the swampy, marshy vegetation behind the neighbourhood gets flooded each time it rains in city.
To make matters worse, the civic agency has been releasing sewage from the neighbouring areas such as Kilokri at this spot for years, alleged residents.
However, on their repeated complaints, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) dug a trench to allow smooth flow of accumulated water from this vacant site to Taimoor Nagar drain two weeks ago.
“But the work was done haphazardly without providing a proper slope to the drain. This has increased the chances of water flowing back from the Taimoor Nagar drain to this vacant spot during rains. In other words, situation is likely to get messier this monsoon. Our neighbourhood can get badly flooded,” said a resident on condition of anonymity.
Other residents claimed the SDMC’s initiative has failed to bring any relief as sewage continues to flow in the open. “Ideally, the civic agency should have laid proper pipelines or constructed a covered drain,” said Baljeet Chawla, a member of the Kalindi Colony resident welfare association.
A senior SDMC official, however, said that the residents are getting worried for no reason. “We have provided proper slope to the trench, which goes right till the end. Residents were expecting us to lay a proper pipeline here but this was not our job. The drain belongs to Irrigation & Flood Control Department and the vacant land belongs to the Delhi Development Authority,” said a senior SDMC official.
“We had even told this to the NGT during a public hearing, three years back. In fact, the court had directed the DDA to develop the vacant site into a biodiversity park,” said the official.
Poonam Dewan, additional commissioner (Landscape) DDA, however, said that the drain belongs to the SDMC and the agency is not cleaning it properly.
“Overflowing sewage water from this drain has made it difficult for us to prepare a detail project report before developing it into a biodiversity Park,” she said, adding that the project for developing the biodiversity oark is in the planning stage and it will take some time to get implemented.
