Aisa hi hota hai

(I was to write this blogpost 4 months ago, but think it has become more relevant now given the recent ‘floods’ in Gurugram:) )

I don’t think this article is going to come as a surprise to anyone. In fact most reactions would be something like - ‘yeh to hota hi hai’ or ‘this is how it happens’. But still given that I have been living out of India for quite some time and before that lived a sheltered live in army cantonments, it is still a surprise to me and I don’t think that’s how it should happen!

My parents recently moved to a new place in Gurgaon (as it was called then!) and they realised during monsoons one of the side road gets flooded. It has been happening for years with the other residents, but as usual no one bothered to do anything about it. My father went to the local administration office to complain a couple of times. Accordingly the next year they sanctioned couple of crores to build a rain drain next to the road, and elevate the road so that water does not collect there.

This whole summer, the roads were all dug up for the drain and road construction, causing lot of inconvenience to all residents (but hopefully there was respite from water logging at the end of it). However, it wasn’t clear if it was going to solve the problems or not. During the construction, no engineer came to visit the site to see whether the workers were doing their work correctly or not. There was no one with any instruments to check if the road was being elevated to the right height or not, they just had no tools to do that! So after complaining a couple of times and stopping their work when not being done properly, they finished it off one night when there was no one to complain! And at the end of the construction, the local MLA’s side kick also called up to inform us that the work is complete, the drain has been opened and this year there will be no water logging.

So given the recent rains what do you expect? Exactly the same as in previous years:). Nothing changed, the drain doesn’t work, the roads are still not level and there is water logging at all rains:)

Well, as they say 'aisa hi hota hai’ but I am confused and looking for answers still. Where did the couple of crores go? What was the summer inconvenience to everyone for?

p.s. Give the water logging of the Delhi Gurgaon highway this year, am guessing a side road in a residential area is not really the biggest headache for the Gurgaon authorities, but it is still highlights how things work!