Cloud of gloom sets in as monsoon woes hit City of Joy

WATER WOES: For the average resident of the city it’s just a preamble of the same old story.

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Keywords: Kolkata, Rains

Kolkata: Folded pants, hiked up sarees and that wet bothered look – these sights along busy crossings in Kolkata are nothing unusual for this time of the year. Monsoons are fast gathering over the northern reaches of the Bay of Bengal and the picture looks grim for an administration ill prepared to cope with the havoc the rains will wreck on the old city.

“The city administration is ill prepared to deal with the monsoons this year. We have tried to address the problem in various parts. We are better prepared than last time but we haven’t reached 100 per cent efficiency,” Mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said.

For the average resident of the city it’s just a preamble of the same old story – waterlogged train lines and serpentine queues for buses and taxis.

But the city is not mincing words in venting their temper out on the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. “It’s such an old story. Even if you ask this question to a 1,000 people it will make no difference to the authorities,” an angry resident said.

And while the storm gathers in the state, the MET department forecast only adds to the gloom. “Heavy to very heavy rains are expected in Kolkata in the next 48 hours. We haven’t issued a cyclone warning yet but fishermen are advised to avoid the rough sea,” Met Department Director G C Debnath said.

Now the common man can only keep at his ritual of waiting for the weather gods to let up. Kolkata has lived cheek by jowl with adversities and triumphed, but come monsoon and its rain fed chaos leaves the KMC falling from grace, once again.

For the city dweller it’s a torrent of troubles in the months to come with little help coming from the administration.

(With inputs from Sukarno Sen)