GUJRAT: Major roads and commercial areas of Gujrat remained inundated with rainwater for hours after the heavy rain on Wednesday morning.

Routine life was badly affected by the situation as people could not resume their routine work,mainlydue to accumulationof water on roads.

The areas of Jinnah Road, Circular Road, Ramtalai Road, Rehman Shaheed Road, Court Road, Bhimbher Road, Jail Road, Jalalpur Jattan Road and Railway Road were the worst hit due to the accumulated rainwater whereas Muslim Bazaar and its adjoining markets were also affected.

This happened despite the Gujrat Municipal Corporation removing silt from the clogged drains and sewerage pipelines of the city well before the start of the rainy season.

The issue of the accumulation of water has been emerging after every rain for the last three decades as even after the rain of a few hours the city witnesses the same problem.

Javed Sheikh, a Circular Road trader, said Gujrat often received days-long rainspell and though this did not happen in the ongoing season and the arrangements proved to be futile which was alarming for the city in coming years.

Adding he said that no immediate solution to the decades-old problem was in sight as authorities and elected representatives of Gujrat could not solve the issue.

A senior administrative officer told Dawn that the Punjab government had been requested last year by the local administration to approve Rs40 million to conduct a survey through Nespak to prepare a master plan to solve the sewerage issue of Gujrat after which the project cost and plan had to be made for the further approval of the government.

He said that the project could not be approved while no funds had so far been allocated even in the current fiscal year.

Resolution of the sewerage problem has been a major demand of the locals of Gujrat in the last many elections. The PML-N government which ruled Punjab from 2008-2018 failed to resolve the issue. In the 2018 elections, the joint candidates of the PTI and the PML-Q pledged to take practical measures in this regard.

PML-Q MNA Moonis Elahi allocated Rs50 million for the installation of water pumping machines at disposal stations of Bole, Kalara and Narowali from his funds.

The Public Health and Engineering Department is installing the pumps, which, sources said, may take another month or two to complete the task. The agency removed the old machines from these sites which caused a problem in draining out the rain water from the city around 10 days ago after the rain of only an hour.

However, old motors were reinstalled after the senior officials of the Gujrat administration took notice but no action.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2020