Bengaluru floods: Residents may have to cough up crores to fix drowned homes, cars

Many luxury villas were submerged in the flash floods that accompanied the downpour.

If you thought a million-dollar house would at least guarantee a safe roof over your head, you'd be wrong, as many affluent residents in India's technology hub Bengaluru found out this week.

Billionaires and millionaires of the city, dubbed India's Silicon Valley, commuted on tractors and took shelter in hotels as their luxury villas and cars were drowned in the deluge that accompanied the downpour.

Epsilon Villas, a housing complex in  Yemalur in Bengaluru, home to entrepreneurs like  Wipro chairman Rishad Premji, Unacademy co-founder Roman Saini, Britannia CEO Varun Berry, BigBasket co-founder Abhinay Choudhari, and Page Industries MD Ashok Genomal, among others, has been under water for over three days now.

The complex has about 100 villas, each costing somewhere around Rs 11-12 crore. Around 80 of the 100 villas have been completely flooded since Sunday evening, according to residents.

“We have had floods here earlier, where 5-6 houses were affected, so we were prepared for that. But this time the ground floors of about 80 percent of the houses have been submerged. The loss will be around Rs 150-200 crore,” said Anees Ahmed, a resident.

This was corroborated by at least four other residents, who said they would have to spend somewhere around Rs 70 lakh to 1 crore to fix their houses. Moreover, residents were told that it will take at least two-three months to get their homes back in shape.

Besides homes, hundreds of cars, including luxury brands like Bentley, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, etc., were submerged and had to be towed by tractors on the morning of September 7. Residents said most were beyond repair.

“We are staying at a friend’s place. Looking at the damages —the flooring, wiring, and more — it seems like it will take at least two-three months,” said Diwakar Gupta, a resident at Epsilon Villas for more than 18 years.

Property consultants say that the rains and damage to the villas will have a short-term impact on demand.

“There will definitely be a short-term impact on demand, especially in micro-markets within Bengaluru.  However, if such floods continue the real estate value will go down,”  said Anuj Puri, chairman, and co-founder of Anarock Property Consultants.

Puri added that the demand for luxury villas had soared during the pandemic, and the momentum continues.

“During the Mumbai floods of 2005, the entire Juhu area was submerged in water. But that was a one-off, so the demand slowdown was short-term. Same with the floods in Chennai,” he said.

Residents said they had expected the water to recede on Monday morning (September 5), when the rains stopped. But since all the sewage lines were cluttered, the water could not flow out. Moreover, it rained heavily again that evening, making the situation worse.

Ultimately, residents had to rescue themselves and take shelter elsewhere. Residents claimed that on September 6 they rescued about 150 people, including children as young as five and senior citizens, some of who had mobility problems. They said that the army and fire brigade helped in the rescue operations with trucks, tractors, buses, and boats.

“About 70 were rescued on boats, while the rest were rescued in buses,” Gupta said.

“The situation got slightly better only on September 7, after Karnataka chief minister (CM) Basavaraj Bommai visited the area the prior evening. Residents are apprehensive of what will happen if it rains heavily again.

“The cleaning of the gutters was fast-tracked as the CM was supposed to pay a visit,” an Epsilon resident said.

Bengaluru saw its wettest day in about eight years on September 5. The city recorded 131.6 mm of rain in 24 hours, according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). It was the second such downpour in the city in less than a week.

Bellandur and Yemalur are among the worst-affected areas in the city. A lot of the city’s affluent stay in these areas and pay crores every year in taxes.

Bengaluru is home to millions of IT employees, thousands of start-ups, and about 40 of the country’s 105 unicorns.

“This impacts brand Bengaluru. If the situation doesn’t improve, it will impact investments. Bengaluru has a lot of youth. Young people from all over come here. They are the ones who will be paying taxes for at least another 25 years. But if this is how it is going to be, they will move out soon, and that will hurt the city and the state’s revenues,” said Pawan Mehta, another resident of the Epsilon Residential Villas in Yemalur.

Housing complexes such as Divyashree 77 and Adarsh Palm Retreat ( commonly known as APR), where many founders stay, have also witnessed extensive damage.

Residents and entrepreneurs are complaining that productivity has been hit due to the floods, as most have been busy rescuing themselves and their family members.

“People around were stuck, some old patients in their homes, some small children in cars on the Outer Ring Road (ORR), and this is the IT Corridor with around 500 MNCs in a stretch of 10 km.

``It is supposed to be one of the most well-connected areas of the city with state-of-the-art medical and educational facilities,” said Pulkit Jain, co-founder, Vedantu, who stays in APR.

According to Krishna Kumar, GM, Outer Ring Road Companies Association, flooding between August 30-September 1 led to losses worth Rs 225 crore. Employees were stranded on the road for more than five hours.