Ground Zero: What Is Really Happening in Lucknow's Flooded Colonies?

It takes less than five minutes of walking through Indira Nagar's Sector 14 to understand why residents are furious. Stagnant water, greenish and still, sits at the mouth of nearly every lane. Children step over it on bricks laid by neighbours; shopkeepers have raised their shutters a foot off the ground with scrap wood.

"We have complained six times since the first week of the rains," said Meena Devi, a resident of Sector 14 for eighteen years. "Nobody has come. We are told the file has moved to another department."

The Top Interview visited the site with a hand-held camera and spoke to twelve households over two days. The pattern was consistent: a drain constructed in 2019 collapsed under heavy rain, but responsibility for repair has moved between the municipal corporation and the state PWD without resolution.

“Our house floods every time it rains now. Tell us who is responsible, and we will go to them ourselves.”

— Meena Devi, resident, Sector 14

Local corporator Ashok Tiwari, when reached by phone, said a repair tender had been "approved in principle" but could not confirm a timeline. Municipal engineer S.K. Verma disputed this, saying no file had reached his desk as of the date of our visit.

For families like Meena Devi's, the dispute over paperwork is beside the point. "Our house floods every time it rains now. Tell us who is responsible, and we will go to them ourselves," she said.