Ahmedabad floods sink joy

It took just 2.6 inches and 4 hours to expose the hollowness of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) Rs550 crore storm water drainage claims. The dysfunctional system left the city submerged and struggling to stay afloat on Monday evening.

If tweets like these, “Arey puri season KA barish ek din me daloge kya?” are anything to go by, the downpour accompanied by lightning and thunder, resulted in massive disadvantage for office goers who were stuck deep in inundated roads chock-a-block with unhappy commuters. Traffic, as a result, moved only at a snail’s space. There was hardly any major road  in the city which was not submerged in knee-deep water.

“It took 45 minutes to cover a 1.5 km stretch – from Helmet Circle to Vijay crossroads. Driving a flooded car was another challenge — determining where the accelerator and the break was the real test. I haven’t seen the damage, but I am afraid it’ll be big,” said Digant Popat, a lawyer.

Chaos ruled supreme on all major lifelines — be it the Ashram Road, CN Circle in Ambawadi, Bodakdev on SG Highway, Parimal Garden, Panchvati crossroads or Khokhra circle.

“I travelled 1 km in about 2.5 hours on Ashram Road. Flyover construction is making the situation is even worse at Ellisbridge,” said Pravin Patel, a resident of Paldi.

The city witnessed an average 2.63 inches of rainfall from 4 pm to 8 pm on Monday evening. The city’s west zone reported the maximum rain (4.29 inches) and a new west zone experienced 3.42 inch rain. Most underpasses, including several low-lying residential societies were inundated. 

“Is this the result of AMC spending crores of rupees for laying storm water drainage in the eastern Amdavad?” said Harshad Patel, a social worker.

Badruddin Shaikh, leader of the opposition in AMC echoed the same sentiment: “AMC’s pre-monsoon plans remain only on paper. Even catch pits aren’t cleaned, despite repeated reminders.”

However, the ruling BJP was quick to rebut the opposition’s allegations. “The storm water drainage line has been designed as per international norms. Sometimes flow of water is so high that catch pits cannot drain water,” explained Asit Vora, city mayor.