Pune’s roads underwater this week, exposing the glaring inadequacies in the city’s stormwater drainage system. Despite its status as a designated Smart City, Pune continues to struggle with basic civic infrastructure, as repeated waterlogging incidents paralyse movement and frustrate residents.
Commuters across the city were forced to wade through knee-deep water, with arterial roads like Sinhagad Road, Jungli Maharaj Road, Fergusson College Road, and the Katraj-Kondhwa stretch submerged within minutes of rainfall. Several routes that typically take under an hour to cross saw traffic delays extending to two or more hours, pushing emergency services and daily routines into chaos.
At the core of the city’s chronic flooding is the lack of a comprehensive stormwater network. Pune has over 2,000 kilometres of roads, but only around 325 kilometres—just 16 per cent—are equipped with functional stormwater drains. In many recently developed areas, drains were simply never constructed alongside new roads, making these stretches extremely vulnerable to waterlogging during even moderate rainfall.What makes the situation worse is the lack of pre-monsoon maintenance. Though the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) floated tenders worth ₹10.5 crore this year for drain cleaning across 15 regional zones, only 275 kilometres of the city’s drainage system were actually included in the annual desilting and cleaning schedule. With clogged or incomplete storm drains across large parts of the city, rainfall runoff has nowhere to go but the roads.
Meanwhile, stormwater planning in 32 villages recently merged with the PMC is still in the planning stages. Civic engineers have promised that a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is forthcoming for these areas. However, a 2007 master plan prepared for the old municipal limits has been ignored for years, and officials have now indicated that a new report is being prepared for the older zones too. For citizens, though, these documents offer little immediate relief.Experts and residents alike point to indiscriminate concretisation, unregulated construction, and the encroachment of natural watercourses as key contributors to Pune’s waterlogging crisis. With natural stormwater pathways either blocked or eliminated entirely, even small amounts of rainfall cause rapid flooding, endangering commuters, damaging vehicles, and increasing the risk of accidents, especially for two-wheelers and pedestrians.
Public sentiment is turning increasingly critical of the city’s Smart City label, which residents argue is more aspirational than practical. The repeated flooding during early monsoon spells has brought to light the disconnect between civic promises and on-ground realities. In many neighbourhoods, the absence of proper drainage has become an annual nightmare, with residents forced to brace for disruption with each weather alert.
Pune’s vulnerability to flooding raises broader questions about climate resilience and sustainable urban planning. As rainfall patterns become more erratic and intense due to climate change, the city’s current infrastructure is proving incapable of adapting. Without swift intervention—both in terms of completing planned storm drain projects and rectifying older drainage gaps—the monsoon will remain a season of distress for Pune’s citizens.
Until then, each rain shower serves as a reminder: the city’s roads may be paved, but its preparedness remains deeply inadequate.
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