The Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) has decided to spend about Rs 40 crore on upgrading the drainage infrastructure in the city. The move comes after major roads in the city observed heavy traffic jams due to waterlogging following heavy rains in the last two days.

Municipal commissioner, MS Tanwar, said that as the city faced water logging problems over the weekend, the civic body has decided to develop the drainage system at five key points. For this, we have approved a fund of about Rs 40 crore, and it will be spent after the state government's final approval.

Even the slight rain resulted in traffic jams on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway stretch at Lal Kuan, which is witnessing the 16 lane rail overbridge (ROB) construction.

The corporation deployed 39 officers at 13 worst-affected regions for round-the-clock monitoring and fixing the water logging problems on Saturday.

Officials have worked round the clock and sorted out the water logging problems. The drainage system fell inadequate to drain out the high water volume. The teams are still deployed, and there have been no significant complaints now, said Tanwar.

Meanwhile, councilors said that the drainage system needs to be redeveloped.

A councilor from Raj Nagar, Rajendra Tyagi, said that most of the city areas witnessed heavy waterlogging after the rains in the past three days. It shows that the city is still not prepared for heavy monsoon rains. Due to waterlogging on roads, people got stuck up for hours in traffic jams.

He said that the residents have covered drains in many residential areas, which has decreased the handling capacity of drains.

A city-based environmentalist, Akash Vashishtha, said massive concretisation has led to the situation. There has been a heavy dependence on putting up tiles on roadsides which doesn’t allow rainwater to drain into the ground.

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