Residents look on from their balcony and rooftop as water inundates Acharya Vihar in Bhubaneswar. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, July 8: A mere distance of 10 metres separated a tearful Minati Pradhan from her son Dhananjay for nearly three hours that felt like forever. She helplessly watched her tired and hungry son, just back from school, standing marooned on the other side of the flooded road, drenched to the bone in torrential rain.

This is not a one-off case but a daily experience for the residents of Acharya Vihar who spend the rainy season almost in a state of siege because of the recurrent waterlogging incidents there.

“Life is a daily struggle for us. These days, I think twice before sending my children to school. The other day my husband could not go out to buy vegetables because of waist-deep water on the road and we had to make do with just chapattis for dinner,” said Minati, a homemaker.

The waterlogging has also forced many boarders such as Priti Ranjan Mohanty, 21, to move out of the locality. Priti Ranjan and seven other engineering students, who shared a three-bedroom house in the area, shifted to a smaller place in Patia with a much higher monthly rent.

“We have braved these conditions for two years but can’t take it anymore. We were preparing for our exams on Thursday night when it started raining heavily. Wastewater gushed into our rooms and we sat up on our beds all night, fearing the water would drown us. Power also went off and we didn’t even have a candle to light. We could neither study nor go out for food,” said Priti Ranjan.

Retired manager of a city-based private firm, Kumar Mallick, 69, said the situation had worsened in the last decade with several housing colonies coming up in the stretch between Acharya Vihar and Patia. “Now, there is too much of built-up area close to the drainage channel which flows by our colony. This leads to frequent inundation,” he said, warning developers against scouting for property in such areas of the capital.

“In the last 10 years, not only the number of houses in our locality has gone up significantly, but there has also been rampant encroachment on government land. The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) turned a blind eye to all this and went on approving houses without proper building plans,” he said.

Local councillor (ward No. 24) Pramod Kumar Hembrum said the house-owners and the authorities were both responsible for the present state of affairs. “Prevention is always better than cure but we seem to have ignored that pearl of wisdom,” he said.

“How did the BDA give a clearance certificate to the 60-odd houses which have come up on encroached land in the area?” he asked.

The councillor said that according to the Vision-2030 plan chalked out by experts of IIT-Kharagpur for infrastructure development and expansion of the city, a drainage line, with its exit at natural drainage channel No. 4 near Vani Vihar Square, was supposed to have passed through the land which is now encroached upon by the local residents.

“However, we have not been able to start work on this drainage line because of a high court stay order obtained by local residents. The drainage division of Cuttack was awarded the tender. But since the matter is sub-judice, our hands are tied,” said councillor Hembrum.