PWD to award three-year contracts for effective drain desilting

New Delhi
The Public Works Department (PWD) is planning to award three-year contracts — as opposed to the one-year agreements at present — for desilting city’s drains, containing provisions for audits and penalties, to increase accountability and resolve monsoon waterlogging more effectively, officials aware of the development said.
The agency oversees a network of 2,156 kilometre of drains along the arterial road network. In a related development, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has also decided to undertake GPR (ground penetrating radar) surveys of sites vulnerable to waterlogging and take corrective measures.
“Under the long term contracts, we can link the performance with the release of payments and penalties. The three main interventions proposed to reduce the urban flooding include implementation of drainage master plan recommendations, third-party independent audit and long-term three-year contracts,” a senior PWD official, requesting anonymity, said.
A proposal in this regard was also presented before the chief minister on September 29, the official said.
According to PWD, drain desilting has been made a year-round process, and has increased its worker force for the same. In 2022-23, it desilted 2,069km of drains and removed 167,239 metric tonne of silt; and in 2023-24, it removed 232,552 metric tonne of silt. According to PWD estimates, the city’s old drainage system can cater to a maximum of 50mm rainfall
Delhi’s drainage system is overseen by nine different agencies and it can be broadly divided into larger 426.55 km of primary drains with outfall in the river under Irrigation and Flood control, secondary drains (larger than 4ft) with 1,460km covered by MCD (520km), PWD (354km), NDMC (335km) and DDA (251km), besides MCD and PWD overseeing smaller roadside drains (less than 4ft width).
The PWD official said that desilting is not the only issue which causes backflow of water and urban flooding, and at several places the design and carrying capacity of the drains was not sufficient. “The design problems and drainage requirement for a catchment can only be tackled through a new drainage master plan,” the official said.
On October 21, HT reported that the master plan recommendations for Najafargarh basin are expected by February 2025 and the remaining two basins are expected to be covered by April 2025.
The issue of desilting of drains and its independent verification has been a contentious issue between the government and the agency. This monsoon, Delhi urban development minister Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that desilting was not properly carried out, which led to flooding, and despite repeated written orders from a minister, a third-party audit was not done.Every year, a political and inter agency blame game is witnessed during monsoon as the city grapples with severe waterlogging.
Several parts of Lutyens Delhi also witnessed unprecedented waterlogging this year, as VIP areas, key commercial hubs and iconic sites were inundated. As a corrective step, NDMC invited bids for GPR survey and corrective measures. “GPR survey will help us identify problems with drains and utility ducts to help carry out rectification works at vulnerable points that saw waterlogging this year,” an NDMC official said.
Atul Goyal, president of URJA- an umbrella body of RWA in Delhi, said: “The city was caught unprepared in this monsoon season with several deaths due to severe waterlogging. The tall claims of agencies to have completed the desilting were proved false by the rains. We need a new mechanism to monitor the implementation in which RWAs can authenticate the claims of desilting on ground after which the payment should be released.”