More than a week has passed since the last spell of heavy rain lashed Kolkata but Pailan Park, around 19km from Esplanade and 4.5km from Joka, is still under water.
Residents complained that most places had ankle-deep to knee-deep water and some were under waist-deep water.
No cab is agreeing to enter the area, the residents this newspaper spoke to said.
Rickshaws, too, have stopped going beyond the gate of Pailan Park because of the high level of water inside.
Subrata Chatterjee, a central government employee and a resident of Pailan Park, has not been able to operate the pump in his house for the past week.
He still feels lucky. “I have a two-storey house and the ground floor is inundated. We are all living on the first floor. Many of my neighbours have one-storey houses and they have been forced to shift to relatives’ homes. What pains us the most is that no one is bothered about our plight,” Chatterjee said.
Commuters on a flooded stretch in Pailan Park.
Sanat Kr SinhaResidents are buying bottled water since the underground reservoirs of many houses are still under water.
Chatterjee said he was carrying buckets of water from a tube well on the ground floor for bathing and cleaning.
Dibyendu Mitra, another resident, said roads had been waterlogged since September 20. He has to wade through almost knee-deep water twice every day – while leaving for the office in the morning and on the way back home.
“The 1km stretch from my house till Amgachia Road has nearly knee-deep water. I have to cross this stretch every day to take a bus to my office,” he said.
Pailan Park is not part of the Kolkata municipal area. It is barely 15 minutes from Joka, which is under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Pailan Park is part of the Bishnupur Assembly constituency.
Dilip Mandal, the MLA representing Bishnupur, said Pailan Park was situated at a height lower than its surroundings.
He also blamed the habit of people to throw waste into outlet channels for the waterlogging.
“Pailan is a low-lying area. The water is drained out through a channel running beside the Indian Institute of Management in Joka. But it is filled with waste dumped by people. We have to clean the channel regularly. This waste slows down the flow of water,” he said.
The water from Pailan goes into the 30km-long Churial canal, which stretches between Joka and the Hooghly river.
The canal also carries water drained from various places under the KMC. “The Churial canal is heavily silted and needs dredging,” a KMC engineer said.
