MLC Dharmendra Bhardwaj Seeks Grating and Fencing of Hazardous Drains, Starting With School Routes
MEERUT, Uttar Pradesh – October 15, 2026 – MLC Dharmendra Kumar Bhardwaj today announced a ward-level water audit for Meerut City, to be published within 90 days, after a week in which lanes in Lisari Gate, Begumpul and the old city were waterlogged again. The package also includes a public map of every open drain, a quarterly public tracker of the ₹681.78-crore sewerage programme sanctioned under the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and a commitment that every water and drainage complaint will be acknowledged within 48 hours.
“A city that sits between the Ganga and the Yamuna has no excuse for thirst, and no excuse for open drains that put its children at risk,” MLC Bhardwaj said. “Pipelines before promises. Drains before declarations. Audits before advertisements.”
The MLC also placed six time-bound demands before the Meerut Nagar Nigam, UP Jal Nigam, NMCG, the Meerut Development Authority, the UP Urban Development Department and the District Administration, and said he will raise them in the Legislative Council.
Short of water, flooded by it
Meerut receives roughly 886 mm of rain a year, yet municipal supply runs only four to six hours a day. In parts of the city the water table is falling by about half a metre a year, among the steepest declines in western Uttar Pradesh. The city is short of water and paralysed by it in the same season.
The money is not the missing piece. ₹681.78 crore has been sanctioned for Meerut’s sewerage under NMCG, including ₹369.74 crore for a 220 MLD sewage treatment plant whose completion target was 2025. What has been missing is a public ledger.
“No one can tell Meerut that funds were never sanctioned,” MLC Bhardwaj said. “The question is where the money stops and why the water does not start.”
The five commitments
1. Ward-level water audit, published by Day 90. For every ward: supply hours, timing reliability, pressure and quality complaints, tanker dependence and household tap-connection status under AMRUT 2.0. Data will be requested from the Nagar Nigam and Jal Nigam and checked against resident surveys. No ward will be averaged into a city-wide figure.
2. Open-drain map and covered-drain demand. Every open drain mapped as open, fenced or covered. Grating and fencing of hazardous stretches is demanded immediately, starting with school routes, market paths and dense residential lanes, followed by a funded conversion schedule.
3. Quarterly sewerage tracker. Sanctioned, spent, built and commissioned figures for the 220 MLD STP (₹369.74 crore), the 25 MLD STP (₹103 crore) and the wider ₹681.78-crore programme, published every quarter.
4. Recharge the city. Rainwater recharge structures in municipal parks and government schools first, enforcement of recharge provisions in new building approvals, and revival of traditional water bodies as working recharge sites.
5. 48-hour grievance acknowledgement. Every water and drainage complaint acknowledged within 48 hours, logged by ward and reported weekly on a public dashboard: received, resolved, pending and oldest pending. Helpline and portal details will be announced on activation.
The open drains
Meerut lost residents to open drains in January and February 2026, and a video of the city’s drains drew national attention the same month. The office will not name or number grieving families in a press release. “They deserve answers, not attention,” MLC Bhardwaj said. “A drain that is fenced cannot take a child.”
River pollution
Untreated sewage from Meerut City is a principal contributor to pollution in the Kali (East) and the wider Hindon basin, where the NMCG Action Plan counts 453 industries in the Hindon catchment and dissolved oxygen has been recorded at zero at several survey sites. The National Green Tribunal is hearing OA 859/2022 on Hindon pollution and OA 108/2023 on solid-waste dumping in Meerut. Meerut’s own treated-sewage share has never been published; the quarterly tracker will establish it.
About MLC Dharmendra Kumar Bhardwaj
Dharmendra Kumar Bhardwaj (b. 4 January 1976, village Ikdi, Sardhana, Meerut) is a BJP Member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council from the Meerut–Ghaziabad Local Authorities constituency. Elected on 12 April 2022 with 3,710 of 4,140 first-preference votes (89.61%), he won the seat for the BJP for the first time; his term runs to 11 April 2028. He began in the District Panchayat (Ward 12, Sarurpur, 2010), contested the 2014 Graduates’ MLC election as an Independent, and joined the BJP in 2016. His constituency work includes the October 2022 farmers’ tractor-trolley grievance intervention, a ₹17-crore road-widening push (October 2025), pilgrim medical camps and the June 2026 door-to-door outreach.
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