Nagpur: A car plunging into a dug-up stretch on Rameshwari Road became a stark symbol of Nagpur’s infrastructure chaos after Wednesday night’s 70mm rainfall. The season’s first major shower exposed poor monsoon preparedness at infrastructure sites across the city, leaving motorists driving past waterlogged roads, muddy diversions and unsafe excavations.Even as Nagpur is witnessing one of its biggest infrastructure expansion drives in recent years, the rainfall laid bare glaring deficiencies in planning, drainage arrangements and safety measures at several ongoing project sites. Water accumulation, slush and poorly barricaded excavations turned daily commuting into a risky affair for motorists and pedestrians alike.Multiple govt agencies are simultaneously executing infrastructure projects, including flyovers, underpasses, cement roads, drainage networks, utility shifting works and traffic junction redesigning. These include the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), Public Works Department (PWD), MahaRail, MahaMetro, Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Nagpur Metropolitan Region Development Authority (NMRDA) and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).A TOI visit to several locations found under-construction roads submerged under rainwater or reduced to muddy stretches. Temporary diversions became slippery while excavated roads turned virtually impassable after rainwater mixed with loose soil.Ongoing civil works resulted in waterlogged approaches and muddy stretches at MahaRail’s flyover construction sites in East Nagpur and along the Kadbi Square-Mominpura corridor.The NMC’s Amrut 2.0 drainage project added to commuters’ woes in several South Nagpur localities as roads excavated for laying pipelines turned slushy after the rainfall. Several stretches became particularly dangerous for two-wheeler riders.Water accumulation was also reported around the PWD’s three-in-one flyover project on the Inner Ring Road and at multiple cement road works being undertaken by the NMC, where incomplete stretches hampered traffic movement.In the Besa-Beltarodi area, the NMRDA’s drainage works came under scrutiny after excavated roads turned into muddy tracks, increasing the risk of vehicles skidding.Citizens said the first major rain exposed the lack of coordination among executing agencies and the absence of adequate temporary drainage and safety arrangements at construction sites. With several mega infrastructure projects expected to continue through the monsoon, residents have demanded better planning, effective barricading and proper drainage management to ensure development works do not turn into accident-prone zones every time it rains.
