City areas deluged: 33mm rain busts NMC’s tall talk

Nagpur: The 32.9mm rain of Sunday exposed tall claims made by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) about monsoon preparedness. Numerous suffered waterlogging, leading to water entering several homes in parts of the city.

The newly laid cement roads caused most of the waterlogging, citizens said. With cement roads getting elevated above the previous road levels, rainwater entered many houses in areas such as Manish Nagar, Besa, Beltarodi, Laxmi Nagar, and Wardha Road.

The Manish Nagar underpass, notorious for getting flooded even after moderate rains, was again clogged with knee-deep water. MahaMetro’s efforts to address the issue by installing sump and pump arrangements, too failed. Similarly, Narendra Nagar RuB too got waterlogged for some time on Monday morning.

“Every year, it is the same story. The Manish Nagar underpass gets waterlogged, causing immense inconvenience. This clearly reflects NMC’s shoddy work,” lamented Payal Dhanvij, a banker.

Even roads equipped with stormwater networks were inundated. Roads in areas such as Dhantoli, Hanuman Nagar, Chandramani Nagar, Girhe Layout, and Ganpati Nagar were seen with ankle-deep water on Monday morning. Abhijeet Patil, a resident of Hanuman Nagar, said, “I have never seen anyone from NMC cleaning the stormwater network chambers here.”

In July 2022, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari had expressed anguish over persisting waterlogging in several parts of the city. He had asked all agencies, including state’s public works department, Nagpur Improvement Trust, MahaMetro, NHAI and NMC, to ensure that roads owned by them are not waterlogged. Two years have gone, but there is no change at ground zero.

Many commuters found driving a dangerous task due to the sludge on the roads. This sludge resulted from the NMC’s half-completed pipeline laying work under the Amrut 2.0 project.

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