News: Rao Inderjit Proposes Tunnels to Najafgarh Drain-27-08-2026
Gurugram MP and Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh on Wednesday called the city’s flooding a "perennial problem" that piecemeal solutions cannot resolve, and sought accountability from officials for repeated failures.
He spoke after meeting Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini in Chandigarh on waterlogging and the waste crisis aggravated by a sanitation workers’ strike. Two days earlier, rain had flooded Rajiv Chowk, Subhash Chowk, NH-48, Narsingpur, Golf Course Extension Road, MG Road, IFFCO Chowk, Vatika Chowk and Sheetla Mata Road, shut several underpasses and left schoolchildren stranded for hours at Subash Chowk.
Singh said natural drains, ponds and wetlands had been converted into real estate after licences were issued to developers. As these structures cannot be removed, he suggested surveying natural drains and water paths and building underground tunnels along their contours, similar to Metro tunnels, to carry water to the Najafgarh drain and other water-retaining areas. Encroachments on water bodies and green areas must be removed urgently, he added.
He said he raised the need to fix responsibility on officials who had repeatedly assured at pre-monsoon meetings that there would be no waterlogging.
Singh also flagged falling groundwater levels, sought a comprehensive rainwater harvesting plan and called for urgent action on garbage rotting in the rain during the strike. The chief minister assured him a series of steps would be taken, he said.
Meanwhile, Congress MP Deepinder Singh Hooda wrote on X that a little rain turns Millennium City into "Marine City", and that this showed all three engines of the BJP in Gurugram had failed.
