Several neighbourhoods in southeastern parts of Kolkata were inundated even on Wednesday and a brief but intense spell of rain on Wednesday afternoon further worsened the situation there.
Stretches in New Garia, Panchasayar, Nayabad and Mukundapur were ankle-deep or knee-deep in water, the fallout of the persistent downpour Sunday through Tuesday.
Kolkata Municipal Corporation engineers said many of these places had no underground drainage network.
Open drains take water from these areas to various canals.
The residents of lanes and bylanes that do not have any open drain have to wait for the water to evaporate or percolate underground.
The Telegraph reported on Wednesday about the plight of residents of Mukundapur and adjoining areas.
“Lack of dredging of the canals that drain out water from these places is another reason why the accumulated water is taking time to recede even from places that have an underground drainage network,” said a KMC engineer.
“About 30 per cent of Panchasayar, Mukundapur, Nayabad and New Garia have an underground drainage network. The rest depend on open drains,” the engineer said.
The KMC had last built an underground network in these places more than a decade back. Since then no project has been undertaken to expand the network.
Subir Dey, a resident of Nayabad, had to skip office on Tuesday and Wednesday. The road in front of the building where he owns an apartment had knee-deep water. “There was no electricity from Monday midnight till 9.30pm on Tuesday. I could not even work from home because my laptop had run out of charge,” he said.
Dey could not take out his car fearing breakdown in waterlogged streets. No taxi or app cab agreed to pick him up.
As water was flowing over underground reservoirs at homes and housing complexes, residents had to buy bottled water.
“The government allowed people to construct buildings but it did not build the required infrastructure,” said another resident.
