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Few hours of rain and Srinagar is flooded

FARZANA SYED. Dated: 8/9/2018 12:10:05 PM

SRINAGAR, AUG 8: Few hours of rain and Srinagar city is left completely submerged courtesy the drainage system that has continued to remain defunct and degraded since decades.
On Tuesday most parts of the city were left heavily waterlogged owing to intermittent rainfall while the rain water flooded the roads and lanes across Srinagar city.
Like every time, the streets at several commercial and residential areas, including the city centre Lal Chowk, were submerged again bringing life to a standstill.
To bring worst, rain water entered houses in several residential areas of the city, including old Srinagar areas, leaving several areas inundated. For the entire day old city areas of Safakadal, Eidgah, Nawakadal, Fatehkadal,Babademb, Chhanpora, Natipora, Qamarwari, HMT remained heavily inundated.
The city center Lal Chowk was completely waterlogged while pedestrians had to make their way through knee deep waters.
Although water-logging of city during rainfall has remained constant, nothing has been done for upgrading the drainage infrastructure of Srinagar.
The officials at Srinagar Municipal Corporation say that drainage system of Srinagar needs to be upgraded to tackle with the problem of water-logging.
“Most parts of our city have been provided proper drainage. However the infrastructure is defunct. It needs to be upgraded because drainage system is not capable of absorbing water," an official at SMC said.
“The drainage structure of the city can work only up to the capacity it is provided with to absorb water. Presence of water is huge and drainage infrastructure is not enough for it. The thing is we are not able to upgrade drainage infrastructure of city," he said.
The official blamed delay in upgrading drainage responsible for water-logging of city. He said though there was not any shortage of funds, the work was yet to be started to upgrade drainage infrastructure of Srinagar.
He said that several areas face water logging problems because the drainage infrastructure was not there while at other places it is incapable.
"It was not flood water from any river it was rain water that flooded our streets due to lack of proper drainage system. This area was completely flooded on Tuesday. Only today water level has gone down to some extent," said Ghulam Muhammad Bhat of Baba Demb area of old city.
Post 2014 floods, heavy water-logging has been witnessed in city during rainfall. Though much emphasis was laid on laying capable drainage infrastructure, proper drainage in city has remained a distant dream of residents.