Daybreak - From Bengaluru to Mumbai to Pune, metro projects are colliding with India’s monsoons

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

In September 2022, Bengaluru's worst urban floods in recent memory swallowed the Outer Ring Road, including areas like Bellandur, Marathahalli, Mahadevapura, while the metro's Blue Line was under active construction through the same corridor.Three years later, the metro corporation still wasn't in the room when the city held its monsoon preparedness meeting. It was never invited.Weeks after that meeting, a hailstorm hit. Eight people died in an accident. The flooded areas sat directly above the upcoming Pink Line.Mumbai. Pune. Bengaluru. Same story, different cities. India is spending over Rs 2 lakh crore building metros that keep flooding the cities they're meant to fix. But the gap lies between the agencies building the city's infrastructure and the ones meant to take care of its drainage.Tune in.*Apply to become The Ken’s Intermission Producer *Apply for an audio production internshipDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In September 22, Bangalore faced the worst urban flood in recent history. Areas like Belandar, Martha Hulli and Mahadevapura, all part of the Outerring Road or ORL were submerged. And all these areas also happened to be where Phase 2A of the Metro's blue line was under active construction. But this April, when a monsoon preparedness meeting was underway in Bangalore, the Metro Corporation or BMM. MRCL was absent. In fact, it had been absent all the years before as well. Why? Well, simply because it was never included.

Their absence this time didn't just stand out to my colleague the Kenreportam Run Michael Carney because of the floods that happened in 2022. It was because, just weeks after this particular monsoon preparedness meeting, a hailstorm hit the city. And it was an aggressive one. trees were uprooted and eight people died when a hospital's compound wall collapsed near them. And the flooded areas, Shivaji Ngar, Richmond Circle and M.G. Road sat directly above the upcoming underground pink line. Now, this problem isn't just limited to Bangalore's metro lines.

For example, in Mumbai, the Acharya Atre chalk station on Metro Line 3 flooded just 17 days after its inaugurban. in May last year. In Pune, again by May 2025, the additional commissioner of the municipal corporation publicly attributed nearly 30 new waterlogging sites to how the metro construction had altered drainage patterns. By the way, this was on top of more than 200 sites that had already been identified.

Which means, even as India spends more than 2 lakh crore rupees to build them, the metro lines end up flooding the same. cities that they are meant to fix. And Runmay, who is with me in the studio today, explains how the flooding problem lies in the significant gap between the agencies of building the city's infrastructure and the ones managing its drainage. Hi, I'm Runmay. Thank you so much for joining us yet again on daybreak.

And I'm really excited to talk about this story because it's about urban flooding. And you know, that's something that affects all of us, especially in Bangalore and I'm from Bombay. So, you know, from my experiences in Bombay as well, I know, you know, difficult it can be to exist in a city that has just poor urban planning and floods as soon as it rains. So you start this story about how there was a hailstorm and an accident because of the hailstorm in Bangalore towards the end of April. And that's one thing that made you take the story up and follow it through. So could you tell us a bit about what happened that day and why it was a sign of a deeper problem and how does it tie into metro constructions?

Hi Rachel, it's so nice to be back on daybreak. I think this is like my fifth or sixth time recording with you guys. Yeah. Yeah. So basically what happened that day, end of April, as you know, as anyone living in Bangal really knows, April is when we get the pre-monsoon showers and they are usually a lot harsher than the monsoon showers. that we have because it rains a lot, it floods a lot, we act surprised every single time it happens.

And what happened was that I was at home with our dog and it started hailing and our dog got super surprised as to what was happening. And I was following the news as to what was going on. I was on Twitter checking what was happening in most areas and that's when I heard that a wall collapsed near Victoria Hospital. And a few people were crashed under it. There were a couple of deaths. And it did remind me of the flooding that had happened a few years ago in Bangalore.

And I was concerned that all the stories I read around April were of the same type, that roads are getting flooded, walls are collapsing. So I started to look a little deeper into it, like who's actually responsible for the mechanism? And that's how the story happened. Like you said, you know, we're surprised every time

this happens like and one of the ironies that your story gets into is how there was a monsoon preparedness meeting just a couple weeks before this happened right so what exactly was the result of that meeting and why was there no preparedness okay so uh like you mentioned there are monsoon preparedness meetings uh they happen almost every summer and i had gone to a couple of them this year I was in the meeting rooms. It was like I mentioned in the story that they always have the same type of coffee and for some reason like butter cookies which everyone eyes, nobody really takes. And I noticed that a lot of the corporations were part of the meetings.

The BBMP, I mean, sorry, the Greater Bangal Authority office is where it usually happens. The BWSA was part of it. the electricity corporation was part of it and there was talk about desalting the lakes or maybe clearing out the stormwater drains things like that. The BMRCL, that is the metro corporation, it was not part of the meeting.

And I went back and verified it wasn't part of any of the monsoon preparedness meetings that had taken place in the city. And that's why I realized it hadn't been included in the conversations a few years ago either. I found that very ironic because as you know, metro work in Bangalore does happen, you know, does happen along the lines where we notice most of the flooding happening.

If you notice that in the story, I have written that most of the flooding in Bangalore has been happening along the pink line where metro construction work has been going on. And it just felt really strange to me that a body which is involved in digging up tunnels in and around the city isn't involved in something as crucial as rain preparedness. So just for our listeners, could you tell us what areas are these where the flooding happens more often? Okay, so there's a very pretty chat about it in the story. Most of the flooding in Bangal this year in April happened in Shivajinagar. It happened around Richmond Circle and it happened near MG Road.

It's directly above the city's metro network's upcoming underground pink line. I see. Most of the other areas had rain, thunder, lightning, it had uprooting trees and a lot of roads which kind of became mini-rivers at that time. The flooding happened around the Pinkline areas. I see. And like you said, the Metro Council was not involved in this meeting. Do you know why that could be?

I think it's kind of, I think it's a structural problem in the city right now. The BMRCL answers to the state government. It doesn't answer to the urban local bodies. So they can sort of work in tandem and in coordination with each other. there is an authority issue where if the urban local body, in this case the Greater Bengal Authority tells the PMRCL to maybe fix up a pillar that it has damaged, maybe you know clear out a stormwater drain it has encroached. Technically the metro body isn't obligated to listen to it.

There is a lot of connection between them and there is no authority connection between them either. It's responsible to the state government. So that's kind of where it sits there. Okay. So who exactly is responsible? to take care of this kind of drainage and when it comes to urban flooding? Honestly, the drainage and everything else falls under the urban local body's ambit. But like I said over here, the people causing the issues are not the people who are actually

responsible for clearing out the drainage over there. Like, metros usually come under the meteor corporations and they are special purpose vehicles, basically. they are evaluated on their speed, their capital efficiency, their ridership projections and their financial closures. Nothing in their mandate talks about, you know, flood resilience or drainage continuity during construction, which means they don't have an incentive to spend money on making sure that their construction projects don't hamper with the city's drainage patterns. I see. So you brought up earlier that, you know, about the flooding that happened a few years ago. you're referring to the flood that happened in 2020 in the outer ring right in Bangalore and that was about four years ago and at that time also I think when the metro construction

was confirmed as one of the reasons why it happened and got as bad as it did so why hasn't anything changed in the way you know this kind of operation happens since that time I think there have been a certain changes since that time as in not legal structural changes about, you know, accountability of metro bodies per se. But there have been more monsoon preparedness meetings because the 22 floods, I don't know how many of our listeners really remember this, but they were really pretty severe. A lot of reports came out about, you know, refugee colonies completely going under the floods. And I remember I was living in Marathali at that time. there was the building where I was staying,

I had to vacate it and go and live with friends somewhere else in other areas and I could see that there were people roaming around and makeshift boats around that area. I mean, for a very unvisual at that time but it was really a very serious problem.

All of it happened along the blue line metro construction. So there was Mahadevura, Marathali, Belandor, Silipald. And all of it was the tech corridor. Right. Which a lot of people working in tech not really reach their offices.

You mentioned that. You mentioned that the IT sector lost more than 200 crores in the flood. And that was because their employees were stuck in these floods and etc. Yes. I remember that, yeah. God. Okay. So, but this was also, I mean, this flood specifically,

it was not something that was specific just to Bangal right? Like you noticed a similar pattern in Pune and Mumbai as well where metro construction is going on. Yes, actually, that was the interesting part of this. And in Pune, civic authorities have actually come on record, blaming the metro authorities for flooding and construction. Like, for example, ironically, again, in the Pune's IT corridor, this has happened along Hinjewaradi, along Baner, around Aund and Shivajinagar, Kotrood. All of these are areas where metro construction has been happening or has been happening in the past.

and there were, I think the Pune Municipal Body actually identified 25 areas where such kind of flooding occurs. It's also happened in Mumbai where in the Acharya Atre Chalk Station. And apparently there was a pillar which was constructed wrongly. And it was just left there for two years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is kind of what there was delayed pump activation. There was general unpreparedness for heavy rainfall, which I find very ironic. in a city like Mumbai which floods pretty much every year.

So considering that this problem is so pervasive, it's happening across geographies in the same country with the same infrastructure construction. Is there something in the approval stages itself that's missing in that case because I'm assuming these metro corporations have to submit very detailed plans as to how they're constructing, where they're constructing,

what they're going to be digging up? Right, right. So, like you mentioned, there are detailed project reports. They usually cover like metro alignment. They cover like land acquisition, financing. They talk about where the tunnels are going to go through. And they also talk about something called geotechnics where they talk about whether the land is strong enough to tunnel under. Okay. What's not part of these detailed project reports is a hydrological impact assessment. like there's no watershed modeling, there is no monsoon contingency framework.

Also, if you notice that cities often have a natural and a built-up drainage system. It's based on the lay of the land, like the topography of the land, which are the higher ground, which are the lower grounds. And there are drainage systems which have been built in the cities over decades of construction on it. Generally, when you dig tunnels through there, you actually sort of change the drainage pattern of a city. No, what... Permanently? This is permanently? Permanently, yes, because the tunnels are permanent.

Generally, when a metro sort of builds tunnels around this, they try to bypass the installed drains and pipes to keep the water moving while they work. But when you're living in a dense city like Mumbai or Pune or Bangalore, the road space is tight and the drains do get boxed in. So generally when you're barricading areas for tunneling work, the municipal crew that desults the drain every year, they can usually not get any access and the trains end up block. And the original drainage logic of the area,

it does get permanently shifted. Right. I'm assuming also because, you know, road, like, you know, some areas will be higher than usual because of the tunneling underneath and, you know, vice versa. So one of my friends actually gave me this example, which I think is like, it's pretty cool. So when you're building a metro station, especially if it's underground, like think the Cabin Park metro runs underground, the metro near the Vidan Saoada runs underground. What you're doing is essentially you're digging a huge hole and then you're filling it back up

differently. So the road above that area is at a different angle than it used to be. So now when a road used to slope towards the drain before, it may be because of the incline, the angle, it will slope away from the drain. So the natural drainage pattern of the road itself gets altered. And that is not something that you evaluate in your project reports for the metros, which is something I really think should happen.

Is there a reason why it hasn't happened already? Like, is it just like a lack of foresight? I think it's just a lack of foresight. Just nobody really considered hydrological impacts. well planning. Right. So we spoke about this earlier. You write and you mentioned in the episode also that the IT sector lost more than 200 crores in the 22 floods. Did the BMRC have to, you know, reimburse them in some way for that? No. Again, this is kind of a governance issue that technically the BMRCL wasn't responsible legally. Okay? Because again, it doesn't fall under.

the urban local bodies. There was no sort of mention of you lost money because of the metro construction projects. It wasn't established on paper per se. So I don't think the IT companies really got reimbursement from anybody about that one. And now Pink Line in Bangalore is under construction

and it's going to only go live in December, right? Have the construction areas like the ones we spoke about earlier Shibaji Nagar, M.G Road and Richmond Town. Have those areas been doing okay over this monsoon? I did hear a few more reports of areas near Shivajingagir getting flooded during particularly heavy rains. We do have a weaker monsoon this year than we've had in the past years because of the LNU. So I suppose there is some relief to the flooded areas over there right now.

But still, you know, this is, it's an ongoing issue. And do you think there is any way to actually fix this for good? I do think so. I think if there was greater coordination between Metro SPVs and urban local bodies, then this would really not be an issue. There are a lot of, like I mentioned, there are a lot of sort of hydrological problems to consider. there is a lot of, you know, governance issues over here.

But sometimes it can be as simple as including the metro authorities in your pre-monsoon planning. Just be calling them to the meeting, asking them, you know, if you're digging a tunnel through this area, should we, you know, plan diversions over here? Or your tunneling has destroyed this stormwater drain should we get this one cleared out. I think a better coordinated monsoon planning system would really be a great start. Great. Okay. Thank you so much, Runei, for joining us on Daybreak again. And thank you everyone for listening and we will see you on Monday. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform.

What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the red subscribe button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Rachel Verghis and edited by Rajiv Sien.