Kolkata commuters faced a chaotic start to the workweek as relentless rain flooded key metro corridors, bringing services to a near halt and reigniting long-standing concerns over the city’s urban resilience and infrastructure preparedness. With water seeping into tunnels and platforms, metro operations were either suspended or slowed to a crawl across crucial stretches of the network.
Services on the North-South corridor between Mahatma Gandhi Road and Park Street stations were the worst affected on Monday morning, stranding thousands of passengers during peak travel hours. Long queues spilled out of metro entrances as frustrated commuters scrambled for buses and taxis, intensifying traffic pressure across central Kolkata. Metro authorities attributed the disruption to severe waterlogging and issued public assurances that restoration efforts were underway. However, the impact on office-goers, students and service-sector workers was already considerable, with escalators at key stations like Maidan closed to prevent overcrowding-related mishaps.
This isn’t the first such incident in recent days. On Saturday, metro services on the same North-South route—stretching from Dakshineswar to Kavi Subhash—came to a halt for nearly an hour after an underground drainage channel was inundated. The failure was reportedly triggered by a burst water pipe that allowed excess water to flood the tunnel between Jatin Das Park and Netaji Bhavan. According to metro officials, the drainage system situated between the twin tracks in the underground tunnel became critically waterlogged, posing a serious risk to the electrified third rail. A short-circuit or contact with water could lead to severe damage to rolling stock and endanger passenger safety. As a precaution, power to the third rail was cut and emergency repair crews were dispatched.
The incident highlights a broader challenge for Kolkata, a city historically vulnerable to monsoon flooding due to its flat topography, dated drainage systems, and limited redundancy in public transport networks. With climate change intensifying the frequency and volume of rainfall events, such incidents are no longer rare outliers but increasingly part of a new normal. Urban development experts say the Kolkata Metro’s repeated vulnerability to rain-induced disruptions is indicative of larger structural issues. “Despite being India’s oldest underground metro system, the drainage architecture supporting it remains under-optimised,” said a senior urban transport expert based in West Bengal. “Tunnels built decades ago cannot cope with the volume of runoff generated today.”
Several passengers who were caught in Monday’s disruption expressed anger over the lack of contingency plans. “There was no clear communication inside the train. We were told to wait, then to exit, and there was no information on alternate transport,” said a commuter who was stuck for over 30 minutes at Rabindra Sadan station. Meanwhile, city officials maintained that emergency protocols had been followed and attributed the flooding to external causes. “Drainage failure caused by excessive pressure on stormwater systems appears to have led to water ingress in metro tunnels. We are working in coordination with metro agencies to identify risk hotspots and prevent recurrence,” said a civic infrastructure official.
While rainfall intensity was indeed high, critics argue that rainfall alone cannot be blamed. Unchecked urbanisation, unregulated real estate development near metro alignments, and neglected drainage desilting have worsened Kolkata’s monsoon resilience. The situation is made more precarious by the lack of independent drainage for metro tunnels, which rely heavily on city sewers to remain operational. Experts suggest that new lines being built, such as the East-West Metro corridor, must adopt international best practices, including underground water diversion channels, sealed conduits for electrification, and automated water-level monitoring systems. Retrofitting the older lines—particularly in zones prone to flooding—should be considered an urgent priority, not a long-term goal.
Beyond the infrastructure, Kolkata’s recurring metro disruptions due to flooding also have broader socio-economic implications. The city’s economy is heavily dependent on informal labour and service workers who rely on affordable and reliable transport. Prolonged delays or cancellations hit daily wages, reduce productivity, and stress road-based systems that are already under pressure. From a sustainability perspective, metro systems represent the most energy-efficient and low-emission mode of mass urban transport. Every disruption risks sending more commuters back to private vehicles or diesel-fuelled buses, undercutting the city’s emissions reduction targets. The irony is that a system designed to ease Kolkata’s traffic and reduce its carbon footprint is being repeatedly derailed by poor environmental resilience.
City officials now face the pressing challenge of aligning metro expansion plans with climate adaptation goals. Authorities must ensure that flood management, tunnel drainage, and electrification safety are prioritised alongside track laying and station construction. Coordinated monsoon planning between the civic body and metro agencies is non-negotiable. In response to Monday’s chaos, metro engineers have launched a fresh audit of tunnel drainage systems and promised to upgrade pumping capacity at vulnerable sections. Mobile generators and power redundancy units are being positioned at critical junctions to ensure smoother response in the event of a similar incident.
Kolkata has long prided itself on its iconic metro system—the first in India—but today, its future depends not just on how many kilometres it expands, but on how well it prepares for the climate reality beneath its feet.
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