This too shall not underpass! Best-laid plans to avoid flooding fail to save Delhi

NEW DELHI: There were claims by city authorities of being prepared for the rains with a special action plan. Yet, at least four people have drowned in flooded underpasses. The sub-surface passages at Minto Road, Pul Prahladpur, Samaypur Badli, Okhla, Pragati Maidan transit corridor, Sarita Vihar, Azadpur, Dwarka and Delhi-Meerut expressway under the jurisdiction of different agencies were all inundated despite the road-owning agency, Public Works Department, having formulated an action plan to deal with waterlogging at such facilities.
After the heavy early morning rain on June 28 that brought the city to a standstill, PWD officials attributed the failure of the action plan to the 'high intensity' rainfall. Of the three underpasses where the deaths occurred — Samaypur Badli, Okhla and Shalimar Bagh — two were located at identified waterlogging hotspots and were each under the jurisdiction of PWD and Delhi Development Authority.

The monsoon action plan and flood control order were published well before the first showers and the system to handle downpours was in place, at least on paper. The city’s 16 underpasses owned by various govt agencies was each equipped with water pumps to remove excess water from the depressed sections.
PWD, which published its flood control order on June 15, has its own standard operating procedure for managing flooded underpasses. Since 2022, PWD has been increasing technological intervention in managing flooding and 11 pump houses have been made fully automatic. The pumps start operating automatically when the rising water level trips the sensors.
According to its SOP, a PWD technical team monitors critical locations 24x7. If the depth of water accumulation in an underpass is observed to be 6-8 inches, the control room is supposed to immediately inform the field unit and check with pump operators if the pumps are working. This year, more than 300 waterlogging hotspots are being monitored, with 40 important sites having live monitoring via CCTV cameras.
The action plan says that during the monsoon period, additional maintenance vans with an adequate number of workers will be deployed 24x7, especially at critical locations. During emergencies, PWD is also required to deploy divers with boats, ropes and put up cautionary signage where water stagnation is deemed to be life-threatening.
While the Municipal Corporation of Delhi did not respond to queries about the flooded underpasses in its jurisdiction, a PWD official claimed, “In some areas, many of our staff and officials could not reach the waterlogged spots to oversee restoration work due to the high intensity of rain. The systems in some cases were overwhelmed.”
Two boys, aged around 12, drowned in a waterlogged underpass in Samaypur Badli, in northwest Delhi on Saturday. This location had been identified by traffic police as critical last year, but either the preventive measures were inadequate or not taken at all. While the underpass is listed in PWD’s flood control order, senior officials insisted that MCD was responsible for managing the underpass. “The unfortunate death of two people occurred at the Siraspur underpass in Samaypur Badli, which is under the jurisdiction of MCD,” said a PWD official.
The Okhla underpass, which falls under the control of DDA and was also highlighted as a hotspot by traffic police, proved fatal for a 60-year-old man who allegedly died by drowning. DDA has denied that any person died because of drowning in an underpass under its jurisdiction. A body, the fourth fatality, was found at the Shalimar Bagh underpass, a location not on the list of hotspots.
According to the norms established in recent years, an inter-departmental committee consisting of officials from all stakeholder agencies meets once just before the monsoon season to approve the flood control orders of PWD and the irrigation & flood control department. Officials claimed to TOI that the torrential rains of June 28 occurred before this meeting.