On October 25, 2024, Saurabh Prasad Gupta, then twenty-two, left his house in Bhowanipore without knowing he had just a few minutes to live. Overnight, Cyclone Dana turned the streets into rivers, but he had obligations and a job, so life couldn’t stop. Upon taking a single step into the knee-deep water, his body was struck by 240 volts of electricity which killed him instantly. This is yet another casualty of Kolkata’s annual death trap.
His story isn’t unique. In August 2025, a five-month old girl died after falling from a bed into stagnant water inside her waterlogged home in North Dum Dum. Each deaths were preventable. Each death screams one truth: KMC and state authorities have blood on their hands. When drainage collapses, electrical hazards are overlooked, and waterlogging turns deadly- it isn’t a natural disaster. This is a systematic failure that costs human lives.
Each monsoon, the same lethal dance begins. KMC blames KMDA for the situation. KMDA holds Bidhannagar Corporation accountable. Families drown in the quicksand of administrative procedures, while their loved ones drown in real water. The KMC’s Rs 5,166 crore budget is conveniently scattered across various flood management departments- a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability when people die. Remember when a 15 year old boy died due to electrocution as he was wading through a waterlogged street while returning home? Or when a diabetic 60-year-old man waded through knee-deep water to a neighbor’s powered home to keep his insulin during a blackout? These are casualties of calculated negligence. Budgets that lack specific funding for flood control are death traps created by officials. When three different agencies oversee a single drainage system without working together, they are generating havoc.
KMC takes pride in its “smart” flood warning systems, sensors, and real-time monitoring- but what’s the point if the response comes too late? The Asian Development Bank’s KEIIP initiative protects 4,800 hectares while millions remain vulnerable. When dishonest contractors build drainage systems with inferior supplies, when pump workers neglect their duties, or when alerting systems don’t reach the slums where the poor pay the greatest price, smart technology loses its purpose.
The east Kolkata wetlands are disappearing because officials allow illegal construction for petty bribes. Twenty-five percent of Mangrove forests that shield us from storms are gone. Studies suggest by 2070, the ground could sink by another half meter. Cyclone Dana’s approach was precisely identified by the sensors. Flooding was properly forecast by the systems. The technology is functional, but the people who operate it are not. Every broken pump, blocked drain left unclogged, and every exposed electrical line close to flood zones are loaded weapons waiting to harm vulnerable individuals. The authorities are aware of this but they just don’t care enough to act.
