GURUGRAM: Friday was the season’s first rainy day, in the true sense, when the city received heavy showers in several spells throughout the day, leaving most important junctions waterlogged and key roads clogged. The city reported around 39.4mm of rainfall till late evening, leaving residents marooned in their own homes, offices and on the streets .WATERLOGGINGA few hours’ showers left major pockets of Udyog Vihar industrial area, Rajiv Chowk and Signature Towers waterlogged. Even stretches along Old Delhi-Gurugram Road and Golf Course Road got inundated. Areas around Hero Honda Chowk, notorious for flooding, turned into miniature pools, with the water level reaching up to the waist height. Commuters struggled to wade through waterlogged Golf Course Road. “The first real spell of rain left the so-called state-of-the-art thoroughfare submerged.The drainage seems to be missing from the design, which has resulted in this flood-like situation,” said Anuj Suneja, a resident living in the area.Near Maharana Pratap Chowk , a Maruti WagonR reportedly got stuck in the rainwater. The entire stretch — from Signature Towers Chowk to Atul Kataria Chowk — was under deep water. Though authorities deployed pumps to flush out the water but the already-full storm water drains could not keep up.At Udyog Vihar, the rainwater flooded all the internal stretches leading to Shankar Chowk road (the link between NH-8 and Old-Delhi Gurugram road). Garbage choked the drains, adding to the mess.“Every year during the rainy season, water enters our offices and godowns, damaging our products,” said Ashok Vashist said, secretary, Gurugram Industrial Association.CLOGGED ROADSThe heavy rain, invariably, brought traffic to a halt, leaving commuters stranded on most busy roads for hours. While vehicles heading Delhi moved at a snail’s pace along the NH-8, there was a one-km-long tailback on Gurugram-Faridabad road between 5pm and 8pm. “It took me an hour to drive down from Khusboo Chowk to Valley View Estate,” said Mangal Singh, a resident of Gwalpahari.Traffic cops, who were deployed on the highway, said vehicles going to Delhi were particularly hit due to waterlogging near Sirhaul toll. “The snarls (inside the city) were mainly caused by the tailbacks coming from inside Delhi,” said a senior traffic cop.HASSLED COMMUTERSThere were long queues at the metro stations as office-goers rushed for the faster commuting option. At Sikanderpur metro station, it took commuters 15-20 minutes to pass the security scanner before entering the platforms. Similarly, long queues of commuters wound outside the premises at Huda City Centre station.DMRC officials said the queues were due to heavy rush of commuters who had to wait for frisking.WHAT GOVT AGENCIES DIDThe task of cleaning drains along the master roads and internal roads is with MCG this year. “We have been asked by GMDA to handle the cleaning (of drains) this year. We have allotted tenders, though a little late. But the issues will be taken care of shortly,” said MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav.MCG had deployed pumps to flush out the water, especially in Maharana Pratap Chowk. “A team of 20 people has been made in every ward to handle problems-related to rain and waterlogging,” said Yadav.Around 200 additional cops were on the roads in the day to manage traffic.Huda administrator Chander Shekhar Khare said pumps around Narsinghpur did not perform well.But a traffic cop said the pumps around Hero Honda Chowk were not working to the capacity. “There is an urgent need to replace these pumps as right after the rain, the entire road was flooded that caused jams,” he said.Ashok Sharma, project director, NHAI Gurugram, said, “Rainwater from major parts of the city, including SPR, goes to Badshapur drain, which in turn floods NH-8. When Badshapur is full, pumps cannot work. The drain’s downstream capacity cannot be enhanced. Thus, we have to wait for the water in the upstream to recede.”

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