Waterlogging in Bengaluru exposes faulty urban planning, lack of infrastructure

India’s IT hub Bengaluru is hit by waterlogging in various areas after a massive downpour in the city. Several areas like Outer Ring Road, Bellandur, Marathalli, Sarjapura Road, BEML Layout and Whitefield are majorly affected as they are submerged in water making it difficult for people to commute.

The flooding of the mega IT hub for the second time in a week has led to bizarre scenes of people boarding tractors and cranes to make way to their workplaces through the flooded roads, reported NDTV.

The waterlogging in the city has once again brought into focus the consequences of unplanned urbanisation. The Bengaluru civic body has identified encroachment on 500 stormwater drains that have now left the city desperately grappling with flooding.

The Outer Ring Road (ORR) which connects the city to its tech parks, remains vulnerable to flooding due to a lack of infrastructure. It is believed that people are bothered about the city being flooded only because it affects the productivity of the IT hub in the city. The area's stormwater drains are overworked as a result of the combination of incessant rain and sewage, reported LiveMint.

Netizens too shared their frustration over the faulty planning and encroachment plaguing the city:

Even as many tech billionaires have heavily invested in setting up their companies in Bengaluru and many other Bengaluru based industrialists have also been lauded for investing in ‘save the planet’ projects, Bengaluru still faces the issue of flooding and waterlogging almost every year.

In fact, most of the IT hub of the city is flooded due to poor sewage and water management systems. Wipro is one such example. Possibly, Electronic City is the only one which has not been affected by the heavy downpour.

Urban planning expert Ashwin Mahesh put out some suggestions to overcome this problem: