CM GRID Works in Lucknow Face Fresh Scrutiny After Vibhuti Khand Waterlogging
The Chief Minister Green Road Infrastructure Development scheme in Lucknow is under fresh scrutiny after Wednesday’s rain left a newly built stretch in Vibhuti Khand under water. Hindustan Times reporters on the ground around 5 pm found a nearly 500-metre new stretch near Vibhuti Khand police station inundated, even though the project includes extra stormwater infrastructure meant to cut ponding.
The same inspection found unfinished CM GRID work in Mahanagar and Aliganj: incomplete footpaths, streetlights that were not working, and open chambers. Lucknow Municipal Corporation executive engineer Atul Mishra said the Mahanagar job, first due in July, now has an extension into September-November. Vibhuti Khand and Aliganj have also been pushed to November.
In Short
- A newly constructed 500-metre CM GRID stretch near Vibhuti Khand police station was waterlogged after Wednesday’s rain.
- The scheme is supposed to add stormwater drains as well as roads and footpaths; the ponding has put that drainage to a first monsoon test.
- Mahanagar, Vibhuti Khand and Aliganj completions have been extended, with LMC now pointing to November.
What failed on the new stretch
CM GRID is sold as a combined upgrade: carriageway, pedestrian space and underground stormwater. The Vibhuti Khand site matters because the drain was already in the package. A brand-new surface sitting in rainwater a few hours after a shower is the simplest public test of that drain. HT’s visit recorded water on that 500-metre length near the police station. The corporation has not, in the same report, published a pump log or a blocked-chamber count for that evening.
Gomti Nagar already lives with this pattern. The city’s last rain-and-road-cave-in jam showed how quickly a half-finished drain turns a through-road into a queue. A few kilometres south, the Gomti riverfront is the city’s advertised water edge; Vibhuti Khand is the inland grid that is supposed to carry stormwater away from offices and housing before it reaches that edge.
Open chambers and dead streetlights on the same corridors are a separate, daylight risk. Commuters on the Gomti Nagar Extension stretch already deal with uneven surfaces after dark. An open chamber on a GRID site is not a finishing delay. It is a fall hazard on a road the corporation is still calling an upgrade.
Mahanagar and Aliganj are still open sites
The HT assessment found the same unfinished mix in Mahanagar and Aliganj: footpaths not closed, lights not working, chambers left open. Mishra’s timeline is now the public one. Mahanagar missed July. All three packages are being talked about as September-to-November jobs. That puts the next heavy-rain weeks inside the extension, not after a clean handover.
Parks that sit on the same east-Lucknow map, including Janeshwar Mishra Park and Lohia Park, stay usable only if the approach roads drain. GRID was meant to be that approach, not another season of cones and standing water.
The Nepal-linked UP flood alert is a different scale of water. GRID is the local pipe. If the new pipe in Vibhuti Khand cannot clear a Wednesday shower, the civic claim is already thinner than the project name.
What LMC still has to show
- A site-wise list of GRID packages in Vibhuti Khand, Mahanagar and Aliganj, with the original due date and the new November date.
- Whether the Vibhuti Khand stormwater line was connected, flushed and tested before the new 500-metre surface was opened to traffic.
- A count of open chambers and dead streetlights still on those three sites, and a date to close them.
- Who signs the quality check: LMC engineers alone, or an outside lab named in writing.
Until those four items are on paper, the scheme’s public record is the photograph from Wednesday: a new road, a police station, and water where the drain was supposed to work.
Why it matters
GRID is one of the few named road-and-drain packages Lucknow still has under construction in Gomti Nagar, Mahanagar and Aliganj. If a newly laid 500-metre stretch ponds in the first heavy rain, residents will treat the November extension as more calendar, not more capacity. The test is simple and local: dry carriageway, closed chambers, working lights, before the next shower, not after the next inauguration.
Sources: Hindustan Times
