Rains bring out the ugly face of the urban flooding in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: The rain on Sunday exposed the ugly side of the ill-managed city roads and the drainage system. It clearly showed that officials had ignored the causes of inundation as soon as the previous spell of rain had ended, and had taken no step taken to prevent future disasters.

Irate, worried and helpless citizens expressed their discontent and anguish over the repeated incidents of roads going under water.

Heavily waterlogged roads in many parts made the commute horrible for mororists, particularly in the area under the PNVR Expressway at Attapur, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Shaikpet, Tolichowki, Manikonda, Hitec City, Langer Houz, Puranapul, Old City aras, Serilingampally, Nanakramguda, Punjagutta,  Yousufguda, and Begumpet.

Md Salem, who was stuck for more than two hours at Jubilee Hills on his way to Shaikpet, said, “I was expecting that the rains would stop in 30 minutes or so, but it continued. The situation was more terrible when I reached Shaikpet as I had to push my bike as the water level was too high to ride.”

A residential apartment in Manikonda saw its cellar inundated and 25 cars getting submerged on Sunday. It took them an entire day to pump the water out.

A commuter in Nanakramguda, K. Sudhir, shared his plight as he drove his car on the water-logged road in Nanakramguda Saturday evening. Sudhir said, “It was another horrible experience. I was afraid to drive on the flooded road. I could not even imagine the risk that the two-wheeler motorists are exposed to in such situations”.

Md Roshan, who was traveling home from Filmnagar to Tolichowki and found himself in a pool of drainage water, said “ Such incidents expose the bad administration. No one cares about the taxpayers’ lives, neither the politicians, nor the civic bodies.”

As more rains are expected in the coming week, the sorry state of ffairs of the unsafe roads and drainages will only add to the city folk’s risk.