The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) will be desilting and cleaning sewerage between Iffco Chowk and Rajiv Chowk along the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, said officials on Friday. The authority plans to finish the work by April, well in time for the next monsoon, they said.

The GMDA has floated a ₹1.36 crore tender for this purpose, and are aiming to finalise a contractor by October 14.

The development holds importance as throughout the monsoon this year, the two traffic junctions, along with Signature Towers, reported waterlogging each time heavy rains lashed the city, causing traffic snarls along the expressway.

The GMDA officials said that the tender specifies usage of super suction machines for cleaning and removing blockage from the master drains lying between Rajiv Chowk and Iffco Chowk.

“Prior to the commencement of the cleaning process, the existing condition of the seven-kilometre sewerage line will be recorded through a CCTV survey to ascertain the blockage points, and for identifying manholes that need repair. Once a concessionaire is finalised, they will be given a six-month deadline for completing the task,” said Lalit Arora, chief engineer, GMDA.

In June, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had sent a letter to the district administration stating that only 10 out of 36 culverts on the e-way in Gurugram were functional, while the rest were blocked due to encroachment or heavily silted.

Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI could not be reached for comment on the recent development.

An NHAI official, privy to the matter, though said that GMDA’s latest venture is going to make a marginal difference to water accumulation at Rajiv Chowk and Signature Towers.

“The cleaning of sewerage lines will be beneficial for Iffco Chowk. But for Rajiv Chowk and Signature Towers, this will have a minimal effect. As Rajiv Chowk is a low-lying area, water from nearby residential sectors flows downstream towards it. The underpass there hence ends up acting as a reservoir. At Signature Tower, the junction is on a slope and hence remains vulnerable to waterlogging as rainwater from the flyover, Maharana Pratap Chowk flows towards it. Besides cleaning sewerage lines, the GMDA needs to undertake larger engineering projects to address waterlogging issues at both these points,” said the NHAI official.

On August 14, following 55mm of rain, the Rajiv Chowk underpass near Medanta Hospital was closed for five hours after heavy amount of rainwater had accumulated inside it.

Incidentally, it is the second such tender, which has been floated recently for the work related to the drains along the expressway. Last week, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) floated a ₹46.24 lakh tender for repairing and reconstructing stormwater drains between Narsinghpur and Kherki Daula.

Due to the poor drainage system, the three-kilometre stretch usually gets inundated even after short spells of rain, resulting in the service lanes and three lanes of the four-lane carriageway on the e-way carrying traffic towards Jaipur becoming cut-off for commuters.

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