Concrete Jungles, Clogged Drains: Decoding India's Waterlogging Crisis

As the monsoon hits India, waterlogging follows almost as though it's always been part of the package. From water-laden roads to incidents of civic apathy, in some neighbourhoods, waterlogging is routine and feels almost inevitable. The recurring incidents of waterlogging raise serious questions about the country's civic strengths and weaknesses, a lot of which stand exposed as India experiences the monsoon.

The Human Cost

Just a few kilometres away from the NDTV headquarters in Noida, Mohini, a part-time domestic help who walks to work every day from her house, calls up her employers and cancels work commitments. Owing to heavy waterlogging conditions in her village in the Gautam Buddh Nagar area, she said she cannot risk falling sick in this weather.

"Every year, we brace for the rains and walk to work in flood-like situations. The water seeps into our shoes and clothes. After getting drenched, we feel sick yet have to work. Most of us own bicycles and motorcycles; you only tell us, how do we commute in such weather?" she said.

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And Mohini isn't the only one. If one moves towards the Gurugram region, then the situation is perhaps even worse. Infamous for its distressing waterlogging visuals every monsoon, Gurugram sees events where roads turn into pools, cave in, and lead to hours-long traffic snarls.

Arsh Kumar Dhammi, a lawyer residing in Gurugram, reflected on his struggle in the monsoon. Citing the law, Dhammi slammed civic officials. "Nearly 31 years after the landmark judgment in Virender Gaur vs State of Haryana, wherein the Supreme Court recognised the right to sanitation as an integral facet of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, Gurugram continues to grapple with chronic drainage failures and waterlogging. Ironically, a city located barely 20 kilometres from the Supreme Court itself remains plagued by a problem that has become an almost daily occurrence during the monsoon."

Blaming officials, Dhammi said, "The persistent inability of the civic authorities to develop and maintain adequate drainage infrastructure is indefensible for a rapidly expanding metropolis that continues to approve and commission new residential and commercial developments at an unprecedented pace."

Echoing his sentiments is Pratik Luharuka, a resident from another city infamous for waterlogging, Mumbai. "The overall situation hasn't changed much over the years. In areas that face repeated flooding every year, the drainage system needs significant improvement and regular maintenance so the same problems don't keep recurring. Road, infrastructure, and other construction work should be planned much better. As far as possible, these projects should be completed during the roughly nine months of the year when Mumbai doesn't receive heavy rainfall."

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However, the responsibility to keep the city waterlogging-free is not on the civic officials alone.

As the city's civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), faces flak over widespread waterlogging caused by heavy monsoon rain, the Bombay High Court, while reviewing a case, remarked that citizens were equally responsible for Mumbai's flooding. Flagging encroachment and the clogging of drainage systems, the court held that people had "robbed their own motherland", and therefore, the city's waterlogging was not just the civic body's problem alone.

What Causes Waterlogging?

There are several factors that can be assigned to waterlogging. Mayuresh Prabhune, Secretary, Center for Citizen Science, Pune, and an independent researcher on Monsoon & Society, divides the reasons into two parts: man-made and natural.

Noting rainfall patterns and the construction of urban infrastructure, Prabhune said, "Due to climate change, various studies show that extreme weather events, where heavy rainfall occurs in very short bursts, are bound to increase. At the same time, our cities are expanding rapidly. If you combine these two trends, waterlogging becomes the 'new normal', and it is going to happen."

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Highlighting the severity of the problem, he said, "People often assume that the water will just drain away after some time. But while it lingers, it causes accidents, breaks down vehicles, and destroys engines if a car is driven into deep water, leading to massive financial losses."

Urban Planning And Geography

Experts often argue the expanding infrastructure of several metros does not keep in mind geographic or climatic foresight. Since it does not take these factors into consideration, the system often tanks when the monsoon occurs. Every piece of land possesses a distinct geography with natural slopes and ancient water-carrying channels, locally called naalas, historically shaped to carry excess rainwater down to local rivers.

Mayuresh Prabhune said, "Every place has a specific slope and geography to carry water. Generally, over the long term, geographical regions have naturally formed based on the water-carrying capacity of that specific region. When you create an obstacle in the middle of these channels, whether through construction, laying down new roads, or any other type of development, the channel gets disrupted. Naturally, when rain falls there, the water tries to escape through its natural path. But if a barrier stands in its way, the water starts accumulating."

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According to Prabhune, this issue becomes severe when a massive volume of rain, such as 100 mm in a single hour, falls in short bursts due to climate change. Because modern city development has filled up, choked, or built over these historical networks, the water has nowhere to go.

He further added that the problem was not as severe 20 years ago. "Waterlogging did happen back then, but it was a natural process where water would collect in low-lying areas, forming natural ponds. Why did those ponds exist? Because the water couldn't flow away and instead got stored there naturally."

The Concrete Trap

Renu Pokharna, founder, India Recycles, feels that our cities are planned haphazardly. "We emulate models that climatically may not work for us. Concrete doesn't absorb water, and we are going on creating more concrete roads and pavements in the city, so our cities end up having water in the monsoon and drying up in summer because concrete also absorbs more heat. We don't let water bodies be; ours are not perennial water bodies like Europe's, so the moment a riverbed or pond dries, we reclaim it as land. This leads to natural absorbers of water being paved over so water has nowhere to go."

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Mayuresh Prabhune highlighted that municipal bodies and private developers completely seal off the ground with concrete, including dividers, footpaths, and the open courtyard areas within private housing societies. This elimination of open soil blocks rainwater from percolating down into the earth, cutting off groundwater table recharge and permanently trapping massive runoff on the surface.

"We view this as development because concrete roads look clean and last longer. But if we are going to build them, we must ensure that paths for water disposal are preserved, something that is routinely ignored," he said.

How Can We Prevent It?

To stop waterlogging from becoming an accepted reality of every monsoon, urban design must transition from seasonal, post-waterlogging reactions toward decades-long, proactive urban engineering.

Arghyadip Hatua, a walkability and urban policy advocate, said, "Civic agencies certainly have a responsibility to regularly desilt drains, maintain stormwater networks and enforce building regulations, but the challenge goes beyond seasonal maintenance. Many drainage systems are outdated, different agencies often work in silos, and long-term urban planning has not always kept pace with rapid growth."

How Is It Done Abroad?

Arghyadip Hatua observed that cities like Hong Kong often receive as much as, or even more, rainfall than many Indian cities, yet they generally recover much faster after intense downpours.

"The difference is not simply the amount of rain; it is decades of investment in stormwater infrastructure, regular maintenance, strict planning regulations and the protection of natural drainage systems. In many Indian cities, rapid urbanisation has outpaced infrastructure, drains are frequently encroached upon or poorly maintained, and wetlands and open spaces that once absorbed excess water have disappeared. As climate change brings more intense rainfall, we need to shift from reacting to floods every monsoon to building cities that are designed to manage water before it becomes a disaster," he said.

Countries across the world utilise the "sponge city", which uses green roofs, permeable pavements, and urban wetlands to absorb and reuse rainwater. This principle is adopted widely by countries like China and the Netherlands, among others. 

Noting this, Hatua said, "As climate change brings more extreme rainfall events, integrating sponge city principles into railway expansion and station redevelopment could become as important as building new tracks and platforms. Rather than treating railway stations and depots as concrete transport facilities alone, India can redesign them as urban water-management assets. Every station, depot, parking area, and rail corridor can help absorb, store, filter, and reuse rainwater."

Developing A Civic Sense

While popular discourse blames civic officials for mismanagement, experts also noted that the disposal of such a wide-scale problem cannot happen at the official level alone. Recurrent waterlogging calls for the development of a civic sense where citizens, too, act as stakeholders and assess the long-term impact of their actions, such as clogging drains or encroaching upon territory crucial for the disposal of water.

Mayuresh Prabhune said, "Civic sense is absolutely essential, but until strict fines are actually imposed, nothing will change. This is a societal problem; if an entire community dumps its trash directly onto the open road and expects the government to clean it up, that simply won't work. After all, who makes up these civic bodies? They are people just like us who step out of their offices and return to being regular citizens."

Experts argued that India cannot build the cities of tomorrow using the drainage blueprints of yesterday. Besides this, blaming officials alone may not solve the problem. A collective approach balancing development with ecology and citizen action with official guidance emerges to be the way forward.