Parts of Cossipore and Kasba remained inundated for much of Wednesday though the civic body managed to drain out water from waterlogging-prone stretches of arterial roads following overnight rain.
Ratan Babu Road, Prannath Chowdhury Lane and Radhamohan Dey Lane in Cossipore were waterlogged till Wednesday evening.
An official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said roads in Purbalok and near AMRI Mukundapur, off EM Bypass, also remained waterlogged for long.
In Kasba, stretches of BB Chatterjee Road and Kamala Park remained flooded till well into the afternoon.
Water receded from most arterial roads, including BB Ganguly Street and CR Avenue, by 10am, the KMC official said.
"Children had to skip school, very few stores opened and office-goers had to wade through nearly knee-deep water," said a resident of Prannath Chowdhury Lane.
The KMC blamed the waterlogging in Cossipore on a drainage line that had to be blocked a few weeks back to prevent untreated sewage from falling into the Hooghly.
Kolkata has a combined sewer system, which means that the sewage and rainwater flow through the same underground pipe.
During the dry season, the sewage remains highly polluted and regulations bar their discharge into the Hooghly without treatment, which reduces the pollution. But during the monsoon, the sewage gets mixed with rainwater and the pollution is naturally cut down.
The underground drainage pipes in parts of Cossipore that were inundated on Wednesday were discharging the sewage into the Hooghly.
"The discharge had to be stopped following orders from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). We blocked the underground drainage line to stop the discharge. It did not create problems during the dry season, but as the volume of water following yesterday's rain became very high, the roads became waterlogged," said the official.
He said the KMC was building sluice gates near the Hooghly that would allow it to drain out the rainwater into the river on days when it rained.
In Kasba, local drainage issues were behind the waterlogging. In Mukundapur and Purbalok, drainage lines have been blocked to enable the construction of a drainage pumping station, said the official.
The KMC deployed three 5,000-litre capacity vehicles that sucked the water along the edges of roads in Kamala Park to reduce the waterlogging.
Along many other roads, the kerbs were waterlogged till Wednesday evening.