Carts aid stranded colony

LUDHIANA: Planned to be a beautiful dream, for the past 25 years Sunder Nagar stands testimony to a sea of water-logging problems. The residents face a tough time every monsoon season with six-seven inches water gathering on the roads as well as in their houses.
On Monday morning, when showers inundated the entire city, the residents of Sunder Nagar remained a harried lot as they had to use horse carts to cross water.
As per the area residents, the sewerage system in the locality is almost defunct for the last eight years and needs replacement but the MC officials are not paying attention towards it. "Buddha Nullah passing through the area is the main cause of the water-logging as the MC officials do not clean it and sewerage gets choked," said Chander Sehgal, a resident. Sunder Nagar being a low-lying area, disposal at the drain increases the water problem instead of solving it, he added.
Echoing a similar view, another resident Vicky Arora said that they had started calling it Samunder Nagar instead of Sunder Nagar due to massive water-logging in the area. The MC officials, who visited the area, had no solution to the problem but for the residents the place had become unliveable, he said. He further informed that they could not even commute out of the area due to this water-logging but the corporation officials were still turning a deaf ear to their problems.
"We are trying our best to represent the problems of the area in front of the local bodies department as well as government in every public meeting or through house meetings but somehow the problem could not be resolved," said Santosh Kalra, area councillor.
She further said that for the replacement of the sewerage system in the area, Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board had placed the work orders but they blacklisted the contractor for some reason and project was shot down.
On the other hand, Kiran Kalsi, opposition candidate, said that it is sheer bad luck of Sunder Nagar that most of the councillors appointed showed helplessness in solving the problem of water-logging adding to the woes of the residents. She further informed that along with water-logging, the residents also had to drink dirty water resulting in the spread of diseases, especially in rainy season.