Techie's death in flooded underpass is a stark reminder of Bengaluru's poor infra

Bengaluru once again faced a watery mess over the weekend. Heavy rain, thunderstorms and hail lashed the famous IT city of India on Sunday, bringing it to its knees. The rains left several houses inundated, with some residents of Mahalakshmi Layout 1st block complaining that they had to wade through waist-deep water.

The heavy showers also led to the death of a 23-year-old woman whose car got stuck in neck-deep water at KR Circle underpass in Bengaluru. The deceased woman was later identified as Banurekha, an employee of Infosys.

The woman, hailing originally from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, was in the car with her family when it got stuck at the underpass and she drowned. Officials from the fire department were able to rescue the family, but were too late when it came to Banurekha. Witnesses at the spot during the tragedy said that the car driver tried to zoom through the water, but ended up getting the car submerged.

The citizens of Bengaluru deserve decent infrastructure, this photograph should break all our hearts. This young woman deserved better and we failed her pic.twitter.com/z07bwH198n

— Faye DSouza (@fayedsouza) May 22, 2023

Following the tragedy, newly sworn-in Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the woman’s family and expressed deep regret over the incident.

But what is it about Bengaluru that causes it to flood over? A report just a month back had stated that even one centimetre of rain could inundate some areas of the city. The April report by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) had identified as many as 226 flood-prone locations where even one centimetre of rain would lead to flooding.

We examine the many factors that make Bengaluru prone to water-logging.

Lack of infrastructure

One of the key reasons for water-logging in Bengaluru is the lack of infrastructure. The development in the area has far outstripped its infrastructure.

Nagesh Aras, an activist told News Minute that in 2005, as many as 110 villages were merged into Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) but the city corporation hasn’t bothered to link the villages with the city’s sewage system. “This is why the stormwater drains fail and the raw sewage mixed with rainwater spills out onto the Outer Ring Road,” he was quoted as saying.

Moreover, there are no culverts along the stretch. The road acts like a dam to the flowing water and with the lack of culverts, the rainwater and sewage water have no other way to flow but to be accumulated, leading to water-logging.

Rainbow Drive Layout located in Sarjapur also sees frequent water-logging owing to bad planning.

Ram Prasad, the co-founder of Friends of Lakes, a citizens’ collective, was quoted as telling Indian Express that over a period of time, the buildings which were constructed close to the layout raised their height, thereby making the area a “soup bowl”.

Poor drainage system

Another reason for the flooding in Bengaluru can be attributed to the poor drainage system.
According to a report, the city’s drainage system is ill-equipped to deal with episodes of sudden and heavy rainfall. Drains are often clogged with garbage, restricting the flow of sewage, and are too narrow to shoulder the burden of the ever-increasing population.

Several drains are being covered with stone slabs and converted into footpaths. While this provides much-needed space for pedestrians, it also means that these drains are not opened and desilted regularly.

A report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said that Vrushabhavati which had 226 km of drains in the early 1990s, had little over 110 km of drains by 2017. The story of Koramangala valley was similar as well, the drains here too were reduced by half.

Another issue with the drains is the maintenance of them. The CAG report revealed that since 2019-20, BBMP has been giving annual maintenance contracts for drain maintenance, but this covers only 45 per cent of the total drains in the city, which is 377 km out of 842 km. The situation is worse in peripheral areas of Bengaluru, where contracts are given for cleaning less than 50 per cent of the drain length.

Ashwin Mahesh, an urban expert and climate scientist also states that many of the existing drains aren’t even constructed properly. Speaking to The Quint, Mahesh said that contractors hired for the work need to be fully aware of how to create cylindrical pipes, rather than the rectangular ones they currently use.

“Water flows better in a cylinder. But our pipes are not cylinders. There’s a reason for this. The contractors we select to prepare these drains don’t know how to make a cylinder. They know how to lay steel pipes and pour cement on them, therefore we end up with rectangular pipes,” he told The Quint.

Lack of proper urban planning

There’s also been little to no urban planning in Bengaluru, which has attributed to this watery mess. Lubaina Rangwala, programme head – urban development at World Resources Institute (WRI) has cited the lack of inclusion of climate and environmental risks in city planning as one of the reasons for the situation in the city.

“It is difficult to decide whether Bengaluru is witnessing nature’s fury or a man-made disaster, but its devastating impact is out there for all of us to see. Environmental and climate risks have long been overlooked in city planning and, despite such disasters, it is yet to be mainstreamed in our masterplan,” Rangwala was quoted as saying by News18.

There’s also the problem of reduction of open spaces and loss of vegetation cover.

A solution for Bengaluru’s flooding

For Bengaluru to avoid such instances in the future, a long-term solution has to be executed. Water expert Vishwanath S said the city needs to reform its building and stormwater designs keeping in mind the increased rainfall.

Vishwanath told Citizen Matters, “Bengaluru will need to rework its building design and stormwater design codes to deal with the increased rainfall, and also intensity of rainfall. We need to design for short bursts of 180 mm per hour intensity and for 200 mm per day rainfall. Roof slopes, rainwater pipes, storage and recharge structures and stormwater drains will all need to cater to this new regime of rainfall. We also need to improve our predictive powers and models of rainfall events.”

Until we implement real solutions to Bengaluru, the city will continue to flood, and we shall keep seeing such tragic loss of life taking place.

With inputs from agencies

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