ISLAMABAD: Officials of the CDA have remained on their toes during the last two days as rainwater accumulated in a portion of Diplomatic Enclave apparently because of a culvert blocked during the construction of Jinnah Square Interchange.

The civic agency teams remained busy in the dewatering work. Till the filing of this report, the operation was in progress.

Sources said water accumulated apparently because of choking of the drainage as the main culvert had been blocked during construction work on Jinnah Square interchange project. The officials said the culvert was used to drain out water from Diplomatic Enclave. However, during the recent construction of the multibillion Jinnah Square project, the culvert reportedly got blocked during filling/dumping work, resulting into the choking of the drainage.

The sources said rainwater also entered the basement of one of the European embassies, disturbing its electricity network. Due to the rainwater on the road, staff of two other embassies also faced difficulty.

Meanwhile, excavation work was also being carried out to trace the “missing” culvert.

When contacted, CDA’s member engineering Syed Nafasat Shah said that all-out efforts were being made to resolve the issue. He said it would be premature to say that the culvert was blocked during the construction work on Jinnah Square.

“We are trying to diagnose the problem. We are checking it out; we are checking if there was a culvert. If so how it was desilt…we are getting Google image as well,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2025