Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023| Eye on Bengaluru: Why India’s tech hub just cannot manage rain

Even the mildest spell of rain can flood the city's roads and bring traffic to a nosebleed. It's the same story every year, and little has been done to change things for the better.

Navin Malik woke up on September 5, 2022, to the sound of water gushing into his home. The entire lower floor of his duplex villa was inundated, power had been cut off, two of his cars were submerged and he and his family had to be rescued in a tractor. Even today, seven months later, it's a nightmare that Malik can’t seem to shake off.

Malik stays at Epsilon residential villa, a premium gated community around 13 km from Bengaluru's Central Business District. His exclusive address wasn’t enough though to shield him from the horrors of urban flooding.

Epsilon residential villa, a premium gated community around 13Km from the Bengaluru's Central Business District.

"It was a traumatic experience. Our house was flooded for two weeks. It wasn’t a natural disaster; I’d call it a civic disaster. It should not happen to anyone else again. Honestly, we are still in the dark. We don’t know what awaits us in this year’s monsoon,” Malik told Moneycontrol.

The core reason for what happened at Epsilon, according to Malik, was that the drainage size shrunk from 30 metres to eight metres at the neighbouring tech park.

“Last year the flooding was quite bad for everyone here. The average financial loss per villa was around Rs 50 lakh. I lost two cars but the insurance company only covered the Insured Declared Value (IDV). We didn’t have home insurance, so we had to suffer huge losses. In fact, I never imagined we’d experience floods in Bengaluru, given the city’s altitude. But now I’ve learnt my lesson and have taken home insurance at a Rs 40,000 per annum. In the event of a disaster, they will cover only 30-40 percent of the loss but I don’t have a choice. Better to have something than nothing at all.”

Navin Malik visiting his flooded Epsilon residential villa on a boat during September 2022 floods

At Epsilon, located on Yemalur Main Road, there are around 150 villas, of which 105 are occupied. The premises also has an apartment complex with around 14 flats. Epsilon is home to billionaires like Rishad Premji, chairman of Wipro, Britannia CEO Varun Berry and LaundryMate co-founder Abhinay Choudhari etc. A basic villa in Epsilon costs Rs 10 crore and goes up to Rs 20-30 crore.

Yemalur Main Road connects Old Airport Road and tech areas like Bellandur on Outer Ring Road. The road also houses other high-end apartment complexes like Divya Sree 77°, Sobha Palladian, Rohan Jharoka and Sai Gardens.

Nature’s fury a great equaliser

Last year's flash floods in Bengaluru were also a reminder of nature’s fury making no distinction between the rich and poor, multi-crore worth villas and shanties.

While the uber-rich lost their luxury cars and had to be evacuated from their posh, flooded homes in tractors and boats, around 1,000 families living in shanties in Munnekolala near tech-hub Marathahalli lost their belongings – household goods, vessels, rice and other provisions and their children’s school books and uniforms were washed away.

Around 1,000 families living in shanties in Munnekolala near tech-hub Marathahalli lost their belonging in September 2022 floods.

Abubakar Dafadar, a slum-dweller in Munnekolala, said, "We pay a monthly rent of Rs 800-Rs 2,000. Most of us work as garbage collectors or work at nearby apartment complexes. Even our clothes and LPG cylinders were washed away last year. We are already dreading this year’s monsoon.”

Last year, companies, particularly those located on Outer Ring Road were forced to suspend office operations due to the severe inundation. The Outer Ring Road Companies Associations (ORRCA), which represents companies on the tech corridor, had stated that it suffered a total loss of Rs 225 crore due to the flooding of ORR on August 30, 2022.

A total of 859.9 km length of primary and secondary drains serves BBMP area

In fact, a freak, mild spell of rain can bury the city's roads in water on any given day and bring traffic to a nosebleed. It is the same story every year, and little has been done to change things for the better.

City fails year’s first rain test

On April 4, 2023, the city had a mild monsoon teaser. A 30-45 minute spell of rain brought the tech corridors of Outer Ring Road and Whitefield to their knees. According to Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, 6cm of rainfall was recorded in and around Mahadevapura that day.

As many as 14 flights at Kempegowda International Airport had to be diverted, and seepage was reported at the newly built Metro stations including Pattandur Agrahara (ITPB) and Nallurhalli and arterial roads were waterlogged. The domino effect caused traffic to come to a standstill, with auto drivers quoting exorbitant fares and the average citizen being stuck on the road for hours without respite.

Reasons for flooding

Bengaluru is classified into three main natural valley systems: Hebbal (northern part of Bengaluru), Koramangala-Challaghatta (central and south-east) and Vrishabhavathi (South-west Bengaluru).

Credit: Raj Bhagat, WRI India

Raj Bhagat, senior programme manager (geo analytics for sustainable cities & transport at WRI India, said, "The major cause of the flooding in Bengaluru is the construction over valleys which ideally should have been protected. We are not leaving enough buffer for water to flow especially during monsoon or extreme rainfalls. Also, the size and number of culverts are shrinking so water cannot transfer from one side of the road to the other side making roads act as barriers in valleys. In some places, stormwater drainage is not present and even the existing ones may be clogged,” said Bhagat.

Credit: Raj Bhagat, WRI India

Unlike in low-lying cities like Chennai, flooding is not widespread in Bengaluru. "In Bengaluru, there are only a few hotspots which are located in these valleys. BBMP should make sure the valleys get a fresh lease of life. We need more drains, particularly along these valleys, and find out the blockages as we have over-constructed. We will also need to focus on newer constructions that are going to come up and figure out how we can incentivise construction outside these valleys without affecting the economic aspirations of people owning land in them," said Bhagat.

Credit: Raj Bhagat, WRI India

Credit: Raj Bhagat, WRI India

Sandeep Anirudhan, founder of Coalition for Water Security, an NGO and a resident of Whitefield said, "Bengaluru is located more than 3,000 feet above sea level. In fact, it is at a higher altitude than some hill stations. Over the years, we have destroyed lakes and started construction in wetlands and floodplains. Now, when it rains, where will the water go? Developments happened insensitively in marshes/wetlands. We have destroyed around 95 percent of wetlands. Today we have houses, offices and roads sitting in the path of the water, which is the reason for floods."

The major cause of flooding in Bengaluru is unchecked construction over valleys, insensitive development in marshes/wetlands and destruction of lakes

He said Bengaluru once had around 2,000 lakes but now has only around 400. "Flood plains, marshlands and buffer zones are protected under wetland rules, NGT rules and Karnataka Tank Conservation and Development Authority rules but all these laws are ineffective.

"Yemalur, one of the worst affected areas, is essentially a wetland, he says. "It was actually a protected area and it should be under the wetland Act and the area should never have been touched. We don't even have planning authorities and there is an extreme lack of ability in governance," he said.

Urban infrastructure expert and AAP leader Ashwin Mahesh lamented the repeated instances of flooding. "BBMP has refused to fix this problem. Water flows better in a cylinder than in a rectangular drain which is basic physics from middle school. But BBMP either does not seem to be aware of any of this or they would not contract with those who build cylinders. All they do is hire agencies who pour concrete over steel rods. Drains should collect water from roads. We also have a lousy infrastructure, which cracks, leaks and breaks up at the slightest rains."

BBMP identifies 200 flood-prone points

In the 2023-2024 state budget, CM Basavaraj Bommai announced a Rs 3,000-crore project to tackle flooding in Bengaluru. This was mainly to be used to build sluice gates in lakes and create underground water retention tanks in low-lying areas.

BBMP has already identified more than 200 flood-prone areas across the city. Speaking to reporters after the recent monsoon preparatory meeting, BBMP commissioner Tushar Girinath said stormwater drainage cleaning will be taken up by April-end as well as in May before monsoon sets in, in June. "We will install rain gauges in 200 vulnerable points to send alerts.”

He said Metro and road work by BWSSB also contributes to waterlogging. "We have taken up desilting and strengthening of the drainage network at an estimated cost of Rs 2,000 crore.”

BBMP records show that 741 encroachments have been identified on storm water drains in Bengaluru till December 2022. Of this, 146 have been removed and 597 are pending. "Removal of encroachments in 125 places have been stalled due to court cases and other reasons. We will resume the anti-encroachment drive after elections," said a BBMP official.

Note to readers: This is the second article in a series on Bengaluru ahead of Karnataka polls on May 10

Read the first article of the series: Eye on Bengaluru ahead of Karnataka polls: Pothole capital and land of forever dug-up roads