NHAI calls for one agency to clean drains that flood Delhi-Gurgaon expressway

Time of India

16-05-2025

Gurgaon: Frustrated with the lack of a permanent solution to waterlogging on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, particularly near Narsinghpur, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) chairperson Santosh Kumar Yadav wrote to the
Haryana chief secretary
, Anurag Rastogi, urging him to appoint a single agency to handle drainage issues along the corridor.
In a letter to the state govt last week, NHAI pointed out how the multiplicity of agencies, such as NHAI, GMDA, MCG, district administration, and HSIIDC, led to poor coordination and shifting of responsibilities during the monsoon, severely affecting drainage management after every spell of rain.
It proposed that one local agency, either MCG, GMDA, or HSIIDC, be tasked with managing the drainage works in and around NH-8 during the monsoon to ensure accountability and avoid coordination hurdles.
"Despite regular discussions on various forums, no permanent solution has been effectuated to date by the local administration, which would solve the problem of waterlogging along NH-8, especially at Narsinghpur. As a result, we will have to revert to the deployment of pumps for discharging the water, which is not an efficient solution," the letter states.
NHAI assured that it will bear its share of the cost incurred by the designated agency for tackling the drainage issues.
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In the past, GMDA blamed NHAI for not maintaining the surface drain along the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, while NHAI pointed the finger at MCG for not being able to manage garbage disposal, which ends up in the drains, choking them. Similarly, GMDA officials said the responsibility for resolving the waterlogging issue on the highway lies with NHAI, but the latter blamed the local civic authorities for failing to provide an outfall for the surface drain.
"Year after year, we are stuck in the same situation with multiple agencies involved in the drainage management. To avoid such a scenario, the authority proposed that a single local agency should be appointed to handle the drainage management. We are ready to bear our share of the cost," said a senior official of NHAI.
The Narsinghpur stretch of NH-48 turns into a bottleneck during rains, with frequent waterlogging causing traffic snarls and pedestrian inconvenience.
While short-term measures, including the deployment of pumping machinery and installation of pipelines, were taken over the years to address the issue, the absence of a permanent solution is still lacking.
Last year, NHAI and GMDA jointly deployed 12 pumping machines on the Delhi side of the expressway. Earlier, GMDA planned to construct a 750-metre drain connecting the highway with the Badshapur drain, but the project remains stalled due to land hurdles. Subsequently, Haryana's chief secretary directed the district administration and HSIIDC to explore acquiring 1,750 square metres of land under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to build a drain and address the persistent waterlogging problem on the expressway.