With almost no traffic on the streets and people preferring to stay indoors, Thursday was, for all practical purposes, like a bandh day. Executives, doctors and businessmen decided to watch cricket on television rather than venture out on waterlogged streets.

At Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital, more than 60 per cent scheduled surgeries were cancelled for the day because surgeons and anaesthetists were absent.

The outpatients? departments of most state-run hospitals recorded barely 30 per cent of visitors.

The rain set off power cuts from short circuits at NRS, RG Kar and SSKM hospitals early in the morning, making things more difficult for the hospital staff, who had to contend with thin attendance.

At SSKM, patients had to be shifted from the flooded gynaecology ward, situated on the hospital?s ground floor. Lift services had to be suspended between 7.45 am and 9 am due to a major breakdown.

?The rain played havoc, but we, somehow, managed to make sure our patients were not inconvenienced,? said hospital superintendent Santanu Tripathi.

The situation was similar in most private hospitals, with patients calling up to cancel their appointments. ?By morning, all my patients had called up to say that they were not coming for scheduled surgeries today, so I stayed back home and wrote a rainy day essay for my son,? said laparoscopic surgeon B. Ramanna.

Those who went out, found very little or almost no transport plying. Those who thought the state-run bus service would bail them out, as on most bandh days, were in for a disappointment.

Fewer than 300 buses plied, instead of the 700 earmarked for city routes, till 9 am in the morning.

By noon, reports came in of nearly 100 buses breaking down on flooded streets. This prompted the authorities to pull back another 200 buses to the depots for repairs after water choked their engines on inaccessible roads.

Five Calcutta State Transport Corporation bus depots were flooded.

Fifty trams plied on Thursday till 9 am, and thereafter, hardly any were seen. The situation was no different with private buses, as only 1,000 buses and 300 minibuses plied on the streets. By noon, 50 per cent of these were withdrawn.

Metro Railway saved the day for commuters. Metro officials said they took special measures to ensure smooth and timely services.

There was bad news for those living along Kestopur canal in the Salt Lake and VIP Road area, because the canal was on the verge of overflowing by the evening.

Other seriously-affected areas in Salt Lake were identified as Karunamoyee, Labony, Broadway and FD and EE blocks, where a foot-deep rainwater covered the roads.