Ahmedabad: The city’s elite West, blazing with the icons of the best life, was also the worst affected during Thursday’s downpour, with the area’s luxury bungalows, corporate offices, and farmhouses overwhelmed by flooding.The swanky corridor runs parallel to SP Ring Road and SG Highway from Vaishno Devi to Sarkhej. On Thursday, the corridor’s premium localities, including Bodakdev, Thaltej, and Sindhu Bhavan Road, went under after a 20-inch deluge.The inadequacy of local drainage networks raises uncomfortable questions.
Rain gauge
At Vanshri Villa, septuagenarian Mukesh Dave found himself trapped upstairs with his wife as water rose to 7 or 8 inches inside their home. “Though catchpits and drainage were cleaned on time by AMC, new pipelines nearby may have caused problems,“ Dave said. “The trouble has been returning every monsoon for the past decade.”In South Bopal, an embankment failure at Ambli lake sent stormwater rushing into the 50,000-square-yard Sentossa Park near Zaveri Circle.
People being rescued on JCBs from flooded Ghuma and Shela roads Army Deployed in Ahmedabad Amid Heavy Flooding :-
Rescue teams and armed forces have been deployed at Sentosa Park Society, near Bopal-Ambli Road in Ahmedabad, to assist residents as heavy downpours lead to severe waterlogging across the area.friday,24,July,2026
PHoto Yogesh Chawda
A Sentossa resident, Dilip Zaveri, said the society had spent years preparing for exactly this scenario. “After five years of dealing with this, our society equipped itself with two 20HP pumps and one 25HP pump,“ he said.But floodwaters shorted the power supply. “Water entered the diesel generator set that powered the pumps, and that is why the situation went out of control,” Zaveri said.Firefighters ultimately rescued families of eight, 11, and three from water that rose to 7 feet.On Sindhu Bhavan Road, Bhavin Shah, a developer, watched wide roads shrink to single lanes. “The water’s current was sweeping away vehicles,“ he said. “It took half an hour to cross a stretch that is normally passed in two minutes.”
Ahmedabad rain record
These infrastructure failures reflect spending priorities. While Rs 20 crore was set aside to interlink and desilt Jagatpur, Chharodi, Thaltej, Mahila, Ambli, and RMS lakes, the entire budget was consumed by de-silting.Elevated main roads compounded the problem by dumping runoff water far beyond the lakes’ absorption capacity.Municipal commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani defended the city’s 1,600mm to 2,400mm Western Trunk Line. “This time because of the line, despite more than 20 inches of rain, we received major relief,” he said.The problem, Pani explained, was simultaneous rainfall from Chandkheda to Bopal-Ghuma.
