Gurgaons flood & missing drains

The Gurgaon Manesar Master Plan 2031 includes 60 new sectors and almost does away with all the natural
outlets including nallahs that are essential to channelise rain water.(HT Photo)

Why is Millennium City, which is home to over 200 Fortune 500

companies and over a million people, at a virtual standstill today because
of waterlogging after incessant rains? The reasons could be bad master
planning, encroachments on the main Badshahpur drain and concretisation
of drains. All these factors have ensured that rain water, with no natural
outlets such as ponds, lakes and ravines, has collected on the roads.

Major water channels (nallahs/drains) were demarcated in the early

Gurgaon master plans (before 2001), with maps clearly indicating that
water channels had to be preserved to conserve rainwater and provide for
adequate drainage in the city, say environment experts.

However, subsequent changes in master plans in the real estate boom

periods of 2007-12 are indicative of manipulations by vested interests. The
major nallahs and ponds were thrown open for construction instead of
being preserved.

Important embankments such as Ghata, Jarsa, Chakkarpur, Nathupur

bundhs have survived only partially, as they were zoned as protected
forests, but their upstream submergence areas have all disappeared, forcing
water to take on Gurgaon roads.

The Gurgaon Manesar Master Plan 2031 contains many changes from its
predecessors and includes 60 new sectors and almost does away with all
the natural outlets including nallahs that are essential to channelise rain
water.

The main nallah - called Badshah Kost has been abandoned between
Sectors 58 to 62 under the new master plans. Instead, an artificial linear
storm water drain has been constructed along the southern peripheral
highway.

Ghata, the deepest bandh in the city that had a submergence area (to
collect the rain water behind it) as large as 100 hectares to hold rain water,
exists, but its submergence area has been zoned as sector 58 for residential
construction. In the past, water from the bandh was released for irrigation
after the monsoons, and tubewells replenished annually supplied sweet
water for major parts of Gurgaon.
Over the last 15 years all these natural channels have been blocked. Over
Rs 100 crore has been spent to construct a covered nallah along the
southern peripheral highway along the green belt. In the last three master
plans natural nallahs were not protected and low lying areas of the Ghata
jheel (the submergence area of the Ghata bandh) was zoned as sector 58.
Many sectors along the Dwarka Expressway fall in the high flood level of
the Najafgarh and may get submerged during extreme rainfall events in the
future, says Chetan Agarwal, environment analyst.

Bandhs and ponds too act as recharge zones and help sponge flood water.
All these natural low lying areas should be left vacant and not filled up,
authorities should ensure that their depth is maintained and garbage is not
dumped into them, he adds.

In Sector 72 an artificial lake has been planned for some time now to store
storm water. Now sector 58 has been created where Ghata lake existed.
The 100-year Ghata jheel which was an existing seasonal water body or
wetland has been zoned for real estate. Instead now an artificial lake is to
be dug out in sector 72. That is a huge drain of public financial resources,
he adds.

Raj Vir Singh, retired chief town planner, government of Haryana, said
that preserving the pond, water channels and low lying areas was essential
to maintain the rainwater holding and discharge capacity of the city. He
said that in the last two development plans of Gurgaon the water channels
and ponds etc were not preserved but thrown open for construction. He
added that he had even pointed out this in the year 2012 in his comments
on the latest development plans of the Gurgaon- Manesar Urban Complex
- 2031.