Brace for more jams, September is wettest

GURGAON: Just when you thought you had seen the worst rainfall this year, here is something even worse. According to sources in the meteorological department, September could have even more rainfall than August, which has been the wettest month all this while. Gurgaon has already experienced about 1064 mm rain this year.And going bythe huge pile-up of traffic on the Expressway on Tuesday, it will just get bad.The city, according to the Met department, has received 180mm of rainfall tillSeptember 14. The rainfall in the corresponding period in August was 123 mm.The city has experienced exceptionally good monsoon this season ashas left even the Capital behind. While rainfall in Delhi has been 455.1 mm inAugust this year, Gurgaon is far ahead. The city also recorded a very wet Julywith 262 mm rainfall," said a Met official. The 76 mm of rainfall on Monday thatbrought traffic to a standstill was the biggest downpour the city has seen sofar. The increased forest cover in the Aravalis had been a major factor behindthe good rains. A recently released Forest Survey of India Report points outthat the total forest cover in Gurgaon has gone up by 11 sq km from 218 in 2005to 229 sq km in 2007. As per the report, total geographical area of Gurgaon(including Mewat) is 2,766 sq km and the percentage of total forest cover in2005 was 7.88%. In 2007, the forest cover rose to 8.28%.Metdepartments report has the residents worried. Mondays shower left huge cratersand potholes on the road and driving has become a nightmare, said Sarita Karn, aresident of Sushant Lok. The Gurgaon civic agency has hardly been helpful. Theentire city is in a mess. Broken roads, bad storm-water drains andnon-functional sewage system has exposed the civic authorities preparedness forthe Commonwealth Games shooting event at Kadarpur. Now, only miracle can save usfrom the embarrassment in front of foreign tourists and athletes, rued SaurabhVerma, an MNC executive.