As the latest desilting deadline approaches in Delhi, two drains – Sonia Vihar and Shastri Park – exemplify the paralysis within the capital’s drainage management system.
At Sonia Vihar, authorities have removed just 1.6 metric tonnes of an estimated 1,800 metric tonnes of accumulated silt since January – a completion rate of 0.09 percent. And at Shastri Park, a 600-metre drain has seen only 8 metric tonnes of silt removed – 0.34 percent of the 2,380 metric tonnes target. The deadline of May 31, 2025, seems impossible, if this pace is considered.
The deadline had come on February 21 after the Delhi government’s irrigation and flood control department submitted an undertaking to the National Green Tribunal, which was hearing petitions on Delhi’s stormwater drains. The IFCD committed to complete desilting of 23 major drains that flow into the Yamuna by the specified date. The department was formally given the job in December last year after other civic agencies struggled to meet another deadline set by the Delhi High Court.
Parvesh Verma, the PWD, Irrigation and Flood Control and Water Minister, had last week unveiled an ambitious plan to clean 77 drains across Delhi within the next 100 days, with the goal of preventing waterlogging ahead of the monsoon season. Clogged up silt is just one of the reasons why the capital’s drainage system – designed in 1976 – struggles to cope with heavy rainfall.
But the capital’s larger story under the IFCD is no different. As of February 14, authorities had met just around 24.47 percent of the desilting target across 23 drains.
Link to Yamuna and a governance crisis
Despite the IFCD now holding singular authority, environmentalist Pankaj Kumar notes the impossibility of completion of desilting targets “without the help of municipal bodies”.
A former IFCD engineer’s assessment – “while desilting work may be underway, it's unlikely to be finished on time” – speaks to the disconnect between administrative timelines and material realities. The logistical constraints of silt management (requiring up to 15 days to dry before transportation) render deadline-driven governance fundamentally misaligned.
The state of these drains also reflects a larger truth about Delhi’s relationship with the Yamuna. As Anil Goswami, one of the petitioners before the NGT, notes: “The rivers and drains are interconnected. If we don’t tackle these drains, the Yamuna will continue to be a dumping ground.”
More than 20 major drains carry large volumes of domestic waste, fecal matter, and industrial effluents into the Yamuna. But many sewage treatment plants either operate below full capacity or fail to meet pollution standards, allowing contaminants to flow freely into the river.
On February 17, additional chief secretary Navin Kumar Choudhary had also said that around 28 to 30 drains discharge untreated wastewater into the Yamuna, with the Najafgarh and Barapulla drains being the largest. Numerous smaller drains also contribute to the flow of untreated water into the river, he had said.
SK Sarkar, a distinguished fellow and advisor with the water resources division of The Energy and Resources Institute, said it is important to desilt the drains so that polluted water does not “seep into the ground”.
In 2023, Delhi experienced one of its worst flooding disasters, with over 25,000 residents being evacuated as the Yamuna overflowed due to heavy rainfall and excessive water discharge from the Hathnikund Barrage.
‘Have no choice but to live here’
The state’s failure to maintain basic sanitation infrastructure also affects those living in marginal spaces – often informal settlements perched precariously around these drains.
“When it rains, we are flooded. We have no choice but to live here,” said Neelam Sahini, a 35-year-old Shastri Park resident.
The Shastri Park drain was handed over to the IFCD last year. Around 600 metres long, 1.3 metres wide, and 1.8 metres deep, the drain is partially tapped by the Delhi Jal Board to send sewage to the Buland Masjid Sewage Pumping Station. The drain’s silt, which was earlier meant to be removed by June 2021, has barely budged. Around Rs 8,81,519 was spent on desilting in 2021, but the process is far from complete.
Apsari, another resident of Shastri Park, talked about the circularity of false promises: “They clean the drain, but they just add new silt on top of the old untreated mess.”
Dharminder Singh, who works as a vegetable vendor and has been living in Shastri Park for over a decade now, said, “The silt is removed after more than a year. One can only imagine the state of the drain.”
Meanwhile, around the Sonia Vihar drain, Newslaundry found no workers or machines engaged in desilting from the Zero Pusta neighbourhood to the IFC Bund – a pond receiving sewage through drains from Sonia Vihar and Khajoori Khas. However, at the IFC Bund, we saw two workers desilting.
At the Bund, one of the workers from the IFCD’s mechanical department said, “The number of workers at the pond changes if the silt to be removed is more. There are four workers instead of two but on the rarest of days.”
But a former IFCD official explained that the process cannot meet the deadline. “It takes nearly a week for around one metric tonne of silt to dry out during the summer, and up to 15 days in cooler weather, before it can be transported to the dumping site.”
Goswami, petitioner in the Nizamuddin West vs Union of India case, said the NGT instructed the additional secretary of the irrigation and flood control department to resubmit a revised affidavit by April 9. Goswami also noted that the additional secretary had highlighted inter-departmental issues, including worker shortages and budget constraints.
Sarkar says it is “not impossible to meet the deadline of May 31, given that the departments are encouraged and put their resources for the same”.
Newslaundry reached out to Verma, additional chief secretary Navin Kumar Choudhary, and the chief engineers of zones I and II of the IFCD for a comment. This report will be updated if they respond.
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