- Amherst Street, a two-km stretch in central Kolkata, is one of 347 identified major waterlogging pockets in the city.
- Kolkata qualifies as one of the coastal cities most vulnerable to climate change in the world.
- This photo feature captures the life of people of Amherst Street who seem to have reconciled to the fact that seasonal flooding is something they have to live with and adjust to.
On September 24, 2007, the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa was awash in celebration as a young M.S. Dhoni led India to a win in the first ever ICC World Twenty20 cricket competition. 8448 kilometres away in cricket-mad Kolkata, India, capital of the eastern state of West Bengal, fans were too preoccupied to notice.
“The day Dhoni won the World Cup, I was in waist deep water,” said Amol Khanra, owner of a fabric and tailoring shop established in 1946 on Amherst Street, in central Kolkata. “Not that it was anything new – every year, at least two or three times, this area gets flooded. But that year, the rain was unusually heavy and the flooding was much worse.
“Usually the water here rises to 10, 12 inches two or three times every monsoon. That year, it rose to around 36 inches.”
“This is a low-lying area,” said Vijaykumar Patra, who first moved to Amherst Street 17 years ago. “It rains continuously for about an hour, hour and a half and the street gets flooded. But people know that the water will come and go.”
Longtime residents – shop owners and those who dwell on the footpath alike – point out that the street is lower than the surrounding area, forming a sort of teaspoon-shaped depression. The streets surrounding Amherst Street, all higher, become conduits during the monsoon, with the water flowing along those streets and cascading into the depression that is the 2-km stretch of Amherst Street. “Also, the sewerage system dates back to the British era,” said Partha Malik, who owns a provision store. “It’s a man-made problem. The KMC (Kolkata Municipal Corporation) is trying, but the reality is that water flows from all over into this street.”
The issue is not unique to this locality in Kolkata, though. It is just one of 347 identified major waterlogging pockets in the KMC area.
The city has a flat terrain, which slopes very subtly away from the river Hooghly, from west to east. Such landscapes make it difficult for the drainage to move water out, without the use of pumps. Exacerbating the problem are issues with the underground drainage systems that were built around 100 to 140 years ago.
“The pipes in the underground system are not big enough to carry the water discharge generated by the increasing number of households, plus the rain water during monsoon,” explained Dhrubajyoti Sen, a professor with the department of civil engineering, IIT Kharagpur. “The runoff generated due to rainfall has increased over the years due to increase in impervious surface of the city, which has been a direct effect of urbanisation.”
While the authorities have been installing high capacity pumps and clearing the heavy siltation in the pipes, Sen said that without increasing the diameter of the pipes, the issue can’t be solved. This poses another challenge – it is next to impossible to re-engineer, from scratch, a drainage network situated below 4.5 million people in a rapidly developing city. “The drains are choked with plastic,” said Yagna Tiwari, pointing towards the storm-water drain from his elevated tea stall.
Over the last few years, with a better-equipped drainage and pumping station, the water recedes faster in Amherst Street – and the collective anxiety is also relatively short-lived. “Earlier it used to be flooded for 2 to 3 days, but now it’s just for 5 to 6 hours,” said Dilip Sen, who owns a shop selling bangles. “The Thanthania pumping station has helped.”
A densely populated Kolkata qualifies as one of the most vulnerable coastal cities in the world, with its residents increasingly exposed to rising sea levels, a sinking Indian Bengal Delta, frequent storm surges and varying rainfall patterns. In an attempt to make the city more resilient to climate, the KMC is testing a sensor-based flood forecasting and early warning system.
While such technologies can help Amherst Street stay afloat, anticipation of a waterlogged street prompts people to do their own monsoon planning. “When vehicles pass by on the flooded street, they make waves in their wake and that water enters our shop,” said Amol Khanra. “This year, we are thinking of making a barrier wall of around 2 feet at the entrance.”
People in the area appear reconciled to the fact that seasonal flooding is something they have to live with and adjust to. “I don’t fear anything here in Kolkata, not even the gunda giri (hooliganism),” summarises Partha Malik. “I only fear the rains.”
“The wooden frame always gets spoilt. A lot of people lose their artworks in the floods. Some had to move out from here too.”
“Every year the garage gets damaged due to waterlogging. We shift the bikes somewhere else. This year, we inverted this bench to make a barrier and protect our garage from water.”
“Water is our biggest trouble. I lost my new Xerox machine worth Rs. 65,000. The walls get damaged and dirty every season. So I made the lower half darker. The KMC does a good job, but the drainage system itself is faulty. I’m certain that there’s no solution to this.”
“The moment we see that the rains are increasing, we pack our belongings and tie it somewhere at a height. We then move to a location that’s dryer and higher.”
“It rains continuously for 1.5 hours and the street gets flooded. But people know that it’ll come and go. Once, I was sleeping down on the floor. Water just needs a small hole to seep in. Through some small hole in the wall water gushed in. By the time we realised and started folding our sheets, it was all wet. This was in 2000-2001. I had just moved here. Initially it was difficult but then it became a habit.”
“When the streets are flooded, our work obviously increases. A lot of garbage comes with the water. The people used to come here the moment the street started getting waterlogged. Now they know that we’ll sort it in 3 or 4 hours. Protests and bandhs all these don’t affect us. The pumping station is always open.”
“I waded through the floodwater once and got malaria. It took more than a week to get better. Those 3 monsoon months are very difficult. But I’m not alone to suffer.”
Reporting for this story was conducted as part of the National Geographic Society’s 2018 Out of Eden Journalism Workshop in Kolkata.
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