Overnight rain shuts Medanta underpass for third time this monsoon

GURUGRAM: A roughly two-hour overnight spell from about 1 am on Saturday cooled the city by morning and once again put the monsoon drainage gap on display. Water collected on internal roads in sectors 14 and 15, Old MG Road and several pockets of the old city. Similar pooling was reported around Police Lines, Dhanwapur Road, sectors 4, 7, 9 and 10, Arjun Nagar, Jyoti Park, New Colony, Kadipur, Basai Road, Sushant Lok, Sheetla Mata Road, Old Delhi Road and near Aggarwal Dharamshala Chowk.

The Medanta underpass was shut and barricaded after rainwater spilled onto the carriageway. National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) teams closed the stretch as a precaution — the third time this monsoon that the underpass has had to be taken off the network because of flooding. Pumping machines were pressed into service to drain the water and reopen the link. At Mahavir Chowk, the underpass also held water, though traffic continued to crawl through the flooded section during the morning rush.

### NHAI ORDERS SITE STUDY

NHAI officials said the immediate problem was overflow from the main road into the underpass, not only local ponding inside the depressed carriageway. Pumping after every spell has become the default response. That approach is now under review. An authority engineer has been asked to study the site in detail, map how water reaches the underpass, and recommend longer-term fixes so the structure does not close after every sharp shower.

Rainfall was uneven across the district. Kadipur and Harsaru recorded 83 mm each, the highest among the listed stations. Gurugram tehsil logged 75 mm and Wazirabad 69 mm. Badshapur recorded 62 mm and Sohna 55 mm, while Farrukhnagar saw 15 mm, Manesar 4 mm and Pataudi 3 mm. The overnight rain pulled the city's minimum down to 24.3°C from 27.7°C a day earlier. The maximum stayed near 33.9°C. The India Meteorological Department has indicated light to moderate rain over the next three days, which keeps pressure on underpasses and low-lying sector roads.

For office-goers and hospital visitors who depend on the Medanta underpass, the pattern is familiar. A short burst of rain, cars slowing to a crawl, temporary barricades, and pumps humming until the carriageway is clear enough to reopen. Civic crews also face the wider old-city network where stormwater still sits for hours after the clouds move on. Bus stand approaches and Police Lines frontages have seen the same cycle this season: knee-deep water in places, then a slow drain once the rain stops.

The Saturday spell was not a city-wide deluge of equal intensity, yet it was enough to shut a key highway underpass and slow movement at Mahavir Chowk. That gap between rainfall volume and network resilience is what NHAI's planned study is meant to address — whether by improving side drainage, cutting overflow paths from the main road, or redesigning how water is kept out of the depressed section. Until those works land, each forecast of light to moderate rain will again put the Medanta underpass on the watch list for traffic police and highway crews.