Bengaluru Rains: Startup CEO forced to take tractor to reach office amid crumbling infra

On most days, startup founders and employees laud Bengaluru as India’s Silicon Valley but on some, the city is heavily criticised for its poor infrastructure.

Today seems to be one of those days, when almost everyone, especially the ones belonging to the city’s vibrant startup ecosystem, cried foul, thanks to two days of continuous rains that drowned the city.

Basement of a gated community in Whitefield

The city, which houses thousands of tech startups and at least 40 of the country’s 105 unicorns, saw its wettest day in about eight years on September 5. The city recorded 131.6 mm of rain in the past 24 hours, according to the IMD (Indian meteorological Department), a report by the Indian Express said. It was the second instance of a heavy downpour in the city in less than a week that flooded most parts of the city.

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While some companies were quick to act on the heavy rains on the evening of September 4 and announced work from home for their employees, some didn’t, leaving thousands of employees stranded on flooded streets on the morning of September 5.

Waterlogging in a luxury villa in Yemalur

"In the past week there have been instances where I have taken 3-5 hours to cover a stretch of 7 kms to reach office. The portion after Silk Board is the worst, 3 kms takes over 3 hours to cover,” said an employee working at one of India’s highest-valued startup, requesting anonymity.

“You can't even walk because of the water logging. If someone takes so long to reach office what work will they get done in the day. It's a serious productivity loss," the employee added.

Bellandur and Yemalur are among the worst-affected regions in the city. A lot of startup offices, especially younger startups, are located in these regoins. Surbhi Bhatia, founder and CEO (chief executive officer) of The Mom Store said that there has been no power and water supply in these regions since the morning today.

Bellandur bridge

She said she is pregnant and had to walk almost about a kilometer to the office today as there was no electricity and power supply even at her house since the morning. Bhatia also said that many people had to resort to various ways of sourcing water, as the main supply was stopped. She shared a photo of a lady collecting water from a fountain for toilet and cleaning purposes.

A lady collecting water from fountain in YemalurSource: Surbhi Bhatia

She also said that there have been firebrigades at work, all across the city, helping societies to drain out water.

Fire brigade at work

Arjun Mohan, CEO of Ronnie Screwvala’s upGrad, said that he had to take a tractor to reach the office today.

A tractor at work rescuing people near Yemalur signal

“Bellandur felt like an island,” said Arjun Mohan, CEO (chief executive officer) of Ronnie Screwvala’s upGrad.

“A lot of construction work has been going on in these regions and so the waterlogging is worse there. This time it has happened two times in about a week. This also leads to traffic. I remember seeing on maps this morning how the walking time to a place was shown less compared to a cab,” Mohan added.

Founders are also complaining how this year’s floods have been much worse than the previous ones. Recently, The Outer Ring Road Companies Associations (ORRCA), in a letter to Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, said that the flooding in the last week of August led to a loss of Rs 225 crore as staff were stuck on the road for more than 5 hours.

Rohan Jharoka Apartments in Yemalur

“Even though only 30 percent of ORR (outer ring road) population has returned to working from office, the collapse of the infrastructure has drawn global concern on the city of Bengaluru’s ability to handle further growth. Member companies have made a substantial investment on the ORR,” the letter cited by multiple media reports, said.

Pulkit Jain, co-founder of Vedantu, said that this time the worst-affected roads felt like sets of the movie Tum Mile, a film that captured the horrifying 2005 floods of Mumbai. He said that he has been in the city for over a decade now, but has never seen water logging so bad in various parts of the city.

“We are still waiting for the lifts to start working, for taking our cars out of basements given the water has nowhere to go, we cannot step out on the ORR. People around are stuck, some old patients in their homes, some small children in cars on ORR,” said Jain.

“It is time we take stock of the situation and start taking actions. As a community of entrepreneurs residing and depending on the infra of ORR, we are ready to help as long as government and administration is willing to take some concrete actions to stop this damage from occurring every few days,” Jain added.

As the city faces one of its heaviest downpours in recent times, cracks in its infrastructure are beginning to get exposed. While politicians, investors, and founders celebrate Bengaluru as India’s Silicon Valley, the city’s ability to attract talent will depend on how it manages to sustain its infrastructure, at times of crises like these.

“I have doubts about the ability of this city to attract more talent which means major revenue losses for the state,” said Jain.

(With inputs from Priyanka Iyer and Sanghamitra Kar)