Forty years ago, the monsoon was the most eagerly awaited season in Gurugram — today, it's the one residents fear the most.
I have been working and coming to Gurugram for the last 20 years before making a move from Delhi and settling here in Sector 55.
The monsoon has arrived in Gurugram, and with it, once again lays bare the city’s failings—its poor planning, inadequate drainage, and the harsh realities of its concrete jungle—stripping away any pretence and leaving the so-called Millennium City’s reputation in ruins.
While there have been multiple spells of rain over the past couple of weeks, the downpour on 9 July hit the city the hardest. In Sector 55, where our house is located, the roads were completely submerged, just like in other parts of the city.
This led to traffic chaos, with many residents forced to navigate flooded streets for hours before finally managing to reach home.
'Floating Garbage, Power Cuts: Same Old Story'
Waterlogging on the roads and entire areas turning into rivers because of the rain isn’t the only problem—it’s just the beginning of a long list of troubles. The drainage system is so poor that rainwater floods our parking lots and basements, damaging the vehicles of many residents.
Besides that, in Gurugram, the trash that’s usually dumped along the sides of the roads is now everywhere. The situation became so bad that garbage is floating in the rainwater and spreading all over the streets.
And on top of that, the power cuts are really frustrating. Every time it rains, we lose electricity for 2–3 hours. Most of us live in multi-storey apartments, so outages make it hard to get in or out, especially since the lifts often stop working.
What's even more frustrating is that this isn't the first time that it has happened. It happens every year, after every spell of rain, and yet the authorities and government don't seem to find a solution to this problem.
And this problem isn't like happens at only a few localities of Gurugram, it happens to almost all of the Millennium City, including key areas like Golf Course, Sohna Road, Subhash Chowk, etc.
But the greatest irony in all of this is that countless people here have spent crores on these apartments. These buildings were all constructed with government-approved plans, and the residents pay their taxes.
Despite all that, this is the condition we’re left with. Year after year, it’s something we just can’t make sense of—it’s frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time.
Gurugram might still be a land of glass towers and business parks, but come monsoon, all of that prestige dissolves — quite literally — in knee-deep water.
Is this the price we pay for urban growth? Or is it the result of willful neglect? Either way, it’s time to stop calling it the new normal. Because for the people who live through it, there’s nothing normal about it.
I request the authorities: the monsoon has only just begun, and things are already this bad. Please work on improving the drainage system. Wherever desilting is needed, declogging is required, or new drain channels have to be built—whatever needs to be done, please do it quickly. Otherwise, our lives will become even more miserable.
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