Waterlogged Delhi: Diplomats & Bureaucrats Pack For Hotels & Colleagues’ Place

New Delhi, July 10: The incessant rain in Delhi has brought misery to the diplomats and bureaucrats residing in VIP areas, despite the government spending substantial money in maintaining good quality of life in these places. The incessant downpour has left them packing their bags for hotels and relocating to colleagues’ flats.

The upmarket Chanakya Puri area that houses the embassies and the diplomatic enclave has gone under knee-deep area as the city experienced the highest rainfall of 153 mm during the last 24 hours, breaking a 41-year record.

According to reports, water logging and cases of house collapse have been reported from Central Delhi, especially from Kaka Nagar and Bharti Nagar, which come under the jurisdiction of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC).

Residents including senior bureaucrats have been advised by NDMC to relocate to safer places till the situation improves.

A senior IAS officer was quoted as saying that he had to move his family to a hotel as the situation turned from bad to worse in the wake of continuous rainfall over the weekend. NDMC has pressed machines in the VIP colonies to flush out the rainwater but an NDMC official pleaded helplessness to tide over the situation because of the record downpour.

As per a report, diplomatic staff of an embassy along the prestigious Shanti Path were relocated to a hotel as a precautionary measure.

The misery has come as a greater part of the national capital including peripheral towns such as Noida and Gurugram continues to suffer, notwithstanding claims from the government and administration that all machineries have been activated to keep the people safe.  

The situation is no better in other northern states such as Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand have reported extensive damage to civil infrastructure.

The Indian Meteorological Department has blamed the unexpected deluge on the collusion of two weather systems – the western disturbances and the monsoon winds. “Such interactions are increasingly likely to cause extreme rain and flooding,” the Times of India quoted a Met official as saying.