City Needs Unified Stormwater Network to Prevent Annual Flooding: NMC chief

Time of India

3 days ago

Nagpur: Municipal commissioner Abhijeet Chaudhari on Wednesday stressed the urgent need for a fully integrated stormwater drainage network to prevent chronic flooding that Nagpur faces each monsoon.
"Our existing stormwater infrastructure is fragmented and has limited capacity. We require a unified network and a comprehensive DPR (Detailed Project Report) to address waterlogging in critical areas," he said during a press briefing.
The remarks come amid growing concern that the city's drainage system continues to fail even during moderate rainfall. Currently, the stormwater network covers only 42% of city areas, mostly along major roads, leaving large residential and interior zones vulnerable.
"Nagpur has around 1,500-1,700km of stormwater lines, whereas the total length of pucca roads exceeds 3,500km," said a senior NMC public works department official.
"The current infrastructure can handle only 40mm to 50mm rainfall per hour. In case of overflow at Ambazari and Gorewada lakes, the capacity drops further to 30–35mm," an NMC official said.
The commissioner also admitted that much of the existing stormwater network is either choked or proving insufficient.
Actually, with last couple of years' rainfall record, the entire stormwater network needs to be enhanced to accommodate heavy rainfall, he said.
Chaudhari said two major projects — the Nag River Pollution Abatement project (Package-4) and the Pora River Pollution Abatement project — are underway to enhance the city's flood-handling capacity. "Once these are completed, we expect significant relief from sewage backflow and waterlogging in low-lying zones.
The tender for Package-4 of the Nag River project is currently being processed," he said.
However, the larger issue of inter-agency inaction continues to plague the city. In July 2022, Union minister Nitin Gadkari had pulled up multiple road-owning agencies — including the PWD, Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), MahaMetro, NHAI, and NMC — for poor planning that led to flooding. He directed them to submit a comprehensive plan to eliminate waterlogging and even promised financial support from the Centre for upgrading the city's drainage network.
Almost three years have passed since those directives, yet most of these agencies failed to act on the ground. Instead, new waterlogging spots continue to emerge each monsoon. The problem is compounded by the absence of drains along roads built by NIT — which owns over 965km of city roads, more than 70% of which have no stormwater network. Even in Gunthewari layouts, where drains are mandatory, no progress has been made.