Delhi experienced its heaviest single-day rainfall in June in more than 80 years, leading to widespread waterlogging and traffic congestion across the National Capital Region.
The intense downpour also resulted in a section of the roof at Terminal-1 of the city’s airport collapsing onto cars in the drop-off area.
The rainfall, coinciding with the summer monsoon’s advance over the national capital and its impacts, also set off a blame game with sections of city residents and political leaders using social media to blame authorities for lack of preparedness.
The India Meteorological Department observatory at Safdarjung airport in the heart of the capital had recorded cumulative 24-hour rainfall of around 228mm at 8.30am Friday, the second highest single-day June rainfall since 235mm on June 24, 1936.
The early morning roof collapse at Delhi airport that killed one person prompted the Union civil aviation ministry to direct the Airports Authority of India to conduct a thorough structural inspection of all major and minor airports within the next two to five days.
The rainwater flooded segments of roads causing traffic jams across the city, submerged portions of vehicles at some sites, and even entered homes in Lutyens Delhi, an elite residential area in the national capital with government offices and government-allotted bungalows for legislators.
“Woke up to find my entire home under a foot of water — every room,” Congress MP Shashi Tharoor posted on X. “Carpets, furniture, indeed anything on the ground, ruined. Apparently storm water drains in the neighbourhood are all clogged so water had no place to go.”
Not so far away, a visual posted by ANI on X showed Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav being carried by his staff to his car as his neighbourhood, too, was inundated with knee-deep water.
“The NDMC (New Delhi Municipal Corporation) wasn’t prepared. The drains have not been cleaned. All the workers know where the chokepoints are — if they had cleaned them, this would not have happened,” Yadav told ANI TV. “Can you see what I had to do to get to Parliament, climbed a vehicle there, was carried into the vehicle here.”
Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav attributed the waterlogging in the capital to drains being clogged with plastic waste and criticised the Delhi government for its inaction despite multiple reminders.
“We banned single-use plastic and also asked the Delhi government to take action. We have asked the Delhi government’s industries department several times to close down these (single-use plastic manufacturing) units,” Yadav said at the India Climate Summit.
A PTI report on Friday quoted Yadav as saying that these manufacturing units have not only contributed to environmental hazards but experienced industrial disasters, and yet the “Delhi government has remained inactive.”
“The primary reason for waterlogging is the clogging of drains due to polythene. We need to bring changes in personal behaviour and this should also be part of local governance,” he said.
Tharoor’s post on X elicited, within minutes, a phone call from Delhi’s lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena who, Tharoor wrote in a subsequent post, “was courteous (and) responsive and explained the constraints on effective action arising from the division of responsibilities between the Union and state governments.”
“He does understand the principal problem lies in the failure to clear clogged drains regularly and pledged to do everything in his power to ensure this is done before the next major shower. Hats off to a conscientious civil servant,” Tharoor added.
But sections of citizens said they were happy Friday’s rainfall gave Delhi’s political elite a taste of what ordinary people across the country face every monsoon. “I don’t know why but feeling very happy that VVIPs of our country are getting the real taste of what ordinary people have to face everywhere in India in the monsoon,” Rajat Agarwala posted on X.
