BENGALURU: Overflowing lakes, inundated roads, uprooted trees, vehicles stranded in traffic jams and water gushing into the homes in low-lying areas; few days of rain has brought with it a deluge of troubles for city residents. Choked storm water drains and heaps of garbage lying unattended on streets have only added to the woes of people.
While potholes on waterlogged roads are turning into death traps, the threat of many old buildings and walls collapsing looms large in the IT city. On Sunday, a portion of the Infosys campus wall came crashing down in Electronics City at around 4 am. The wall was located near Gate-6 and the parking lot. Residents of the area claim the wall collapsed due to waterlogging and the encroachment of the storm water drain (SWD) on the Infosys premises.
Nagesh, who had sold a part of his ancestral property to Infosys, said, “The software giant has allowed construction on the SWD whose width is now reduced to only 3 feet. This causes water to collect in the surrounding areas. Even other walls in this area are developing cracks due to this.”
Srinivas, a member of the Konappana Agrahara zilla panchayat also said the SWD within Infosys campus has been encroached upon.
Responding to a set of questions by Express, Infosys said, “Due to heavy rain over the past few days, a small part of a compound wall at the Infosys campus has collapsed. There have been no injuries and we are having the wall repaired.”
Areas near Silk Board junction inundated
Flooding of the Marenahalli Road near Silk Board junction disrupted traffic at the already congested junction. A part of the road was blocked due to the ongoing Metro work and this made the matters worse.
In the same area, water entered homes on ground floors of the GST quarters, earlier called Central Excise staff quarters.
Lakshman M, a resident of the colony, said this was the fourth instance of water entering homes in the past one month. He said the water flows back from the SWD near Silk Board, as most of the drain is blocked there.
“As our power meters are located near the ground, we have also switched off the electricity. We don’t have water as we can’t operate the pump without elecricity,” he said. Even at 5 pm, Lakshman said water was entering the homes.