A 66-year-old man in Salkia’s Tantipara in Howrah was in for a surprise on Saturday morning.

There were men outside his house cleaning the clogged drains and picking up waste from the road. He could not remember the last time he saw such activities in his neighbourhood.

The waste would not have been cleared for months but for the death of 22-year-old Purabi Das on a waterlogged Bhairab Ghatak Lane on Thursday, said a college student.

The Howrah Municipal Corporation woke up from its slumber after a life had been lost, rued residents.

“I have never seen so many people from the corporation working in our lane to remove the muck from drains before. It is so unfortunate that this activity is taking place after Purabi’s death,” said the 66-year-old man who lives a few buildings from the place where the woman got electrocuted on Thursday night.

“The Howrah Municipal Corporation also installed a portable pump in the lane to drain out water. Waterlogging has been a feature here every monsoon, but the municipality never installed a pump. If only they did all this earlier,” he said.

Purabi is suspected to have leaned on an iron shutter for support when she was electrocuted a few metres from her home. She was going to a friend’s place with her younger sister. Police blamed a live wire that came in contact with the shutter for the electrocution.

Sahil Shaw, who went to the same tuition with Purabi, said: “During the monsoon, the drains here are always full to the brim. The drinking water connections along the road do not have taps here and so the water keeps flowing and the drains are breached even when there is no rain,” he said.

In places like Bhairab Ghatak Lane and the adjacent SN Banerjee Lane, residents have even stopped talking about it. The civic body does not care, many of them said.

Bhairab Ghatak Lane, in Salkia, less than 6km from Esplanade, is located on the western bank of the Hooghly, across the river from Ahiritola in north Calcutta.

In Howrah, the picture of neglect and lack of civic services is not restricted to Salkia. Waterlogging after even a light shower is common in Howrah.

A resident of Panch-anantala Road near Howrah Maidan said waterlogging was common.

“To make matters worse, Panchanantala Road is broken and has many undulated and worn-out stretches hidden by the water. It is risky to walk through the road anyway. Flooding increases the risk,” said Korak Basu, a resident of the area.

Howrah has had no elected civic body since 2018. There has been no election to the Howrah Municipal Corporation after 2013. The absence of elected representatives has worsened the situation.

Sujoy Chakravarty, the chairperson of the board of administrators of the Howrah Municipal Corporation, said: “We are taking measures so we can drain out the water in three to four hours.”