The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the government to assign management of the city’s drainage system, garbage, roads, and waterlogging, to one agency.
This was after a bench of justices Prathiba M Singh and Manmeet PS Arora rejected Delhi government’s submission that the Integrated Drain Management Cell (IDMC) is the unified agency to oversee all drains in Delhi and termed the same as “inaccurate”.
To be sure, IDMC was established in 2020 under the orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to manage and improve the city’s drains and comprises multiple bodies such as the Public Works Department (PWD), Delhi Jal Board, and Irrigation and Flood Control Department.
Drawing a comparison with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which is solely responsible for managing civic amenities in the New Delhi area, the bench noted that the IDMC could not be considered as a unified agency, as it consists of multiple bodies rather than a single accountable authority and was only responsible for overseeing 22 major drains.
“We’re talking of all roads and drains. It must be one civic agency for the whole of Delhi. IDMC is only for 22 drains. Till now, we’ve not had one agency appear before us. We have multiple agencies appearing,” the bench said to Delhi government’s counsel.
The court thus directed the Delhi government’s chief secretary to file an affidavit informing about the agency that would be responsible for managing the drains in Delhi.
“…Like in the case of NDMC, which takes care of all civic amenities in the New Delhi municipal area, there ought to be one civic agency which would deal with all issues including construction of roads, management of sewage, garbage, and storm water drains. Let the chief secretary of the Delhi government file an affidavit after placing this order before the administrator/functionaries of the Delhi government, so that the stand of the government can be ascertained and further orders can be passed in this regard,” the court said in its order.
The court was dealing with a plea filed by the Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) of Maharani Bagh Cooperative Housing Society, aggrieved by severe flooding in the colony on account of the rains.
The RWA, in its application, claimed that water flowing from the elevated Ring Road into a bell-mouth opening in the boundary walls led to severe flooding within the colony during rainfall.
In April last year, the court had directed the Delhi government to designate a single agency for managing all open drains in the city. In response, the government, in December, assigned the responsibility for all 22 open drains discharged into the Yamuna River to the Irrigation and Flood Control Department.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the court directed the PWD and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to submit an affidavit outlining the timeline for constructing a drain along the inner boundary wall of the Maharani Bagh colony.
The matter would be next heard on September 3.
The same bench, while hearing a different plea relating to the waterlogging problem in Green Park Extension and surrounding areas, directed the Delhi Jal Board to construct a sewage drain for the smooth flow of rainwater and asked AIIMS to cooperate in the said construction.