Rain pain: Sewage enters houses

NEW DELHI: A few senior citizens in the city definitely don't enjoy the rain. Living on the ground floor has become a nightmare for the Kapoors in New Rajinder Nagar and Sinhas in Mayur Vihar Phase I. Last year, 77-year-old S V Kapoor, who lives with his 67-year-old wife Bibble, had to undergo a surgery on his thigh after he slipped in his drawing room when his house got flooded.And after the heavy downpour on Thursday night, the water was back. The couple spent the entire night cleaning up the mud water that entered their house around 9pm.
"We realised the house had been flooded with dirty water after a stench started coming from outside our bedroom late in the night. I was shocked to see ankle-deep dirty water in the kitchen, bathroom and drawing room. Even getting a glass of water became a hassle,'' said Bibble.
S V Kapoor rued that whenever it had rained in the past three years, water from the sewers had flowed back into their house. "It is a recurring problem. We keep calling the sewage cleaners asking them to clear the blocked sewage drain in our backyard, but our complaints are not taken seriously,'' he said.
Helpless, the old couple, whose only daughter lives in Pitampura, now dreads every time there are heavy showers in the city. "We have a domestic help, but when the water started to flow back from the kitchen and bathroom drains in the night she wasn't around,'' said Bibble.
It's a similar story for the Sinhas in Mayur Vihar. Seventy-year-old Ashok Sinha has approached all the agencies concerned to address the flooding problem. But it has yielded absolutely nothing. The sewage water flows back into his house every time it rains heavily. He says agencies have always passed the buck to each other. "After the rain on Thursday night, dirty water from the sewers flowed back into my kitchen, bathroom and drawing room. The electricity department in DJB said the pumps are not working properly while pumpwalas said the problem was with the sewer lines. Who should I approach? Who is responsible for keeping dirty water out of my house?'' asked Sinha.
Meanwhile, DJB said the problem was a concern of the MCD and in normal course rainwater should not enter the sewers. DJB spokesperson said, "The stormwater drains are maintained by MCD and rainwater should not enter the sewer lines at all. If water is flowing back, there has to be some problem with the construction of the stormwater drains.''