Heavy rainfall in Dum Dum and its surrounding areas turned VIP Road into a canal with waist-deep water triggering traffic snarls that led to many heart-in-mouth moments for passengers who reached the airport in the nick of time to catch their flights.

All of Calcutta had a rainy Friday night. But this part of the city was the wettest.

The Dum Dum observatory of the India Meteorological Department recorded 100mm of rain between 8.30am on Friday and 8.30am on Saturday. The Salt Lake observatory recorded 81.1mm of rain.

In Met parlance, more than 60mm in 24 hours qualifies as heavy rain.

VIP Road is one of the main thoroughfares that connects the rest of the city with the airport and is one of the fastest routes as well. Like the rest of the city, waterlogging is not alien here but on Saturday large tracts of the artery resembled the Kestopur Canal that flows alongside. Several residents said they had not seen such a situation in at least a couple of years.

Vehicles crawled on VIP Road as a 3.4km-stretch of the artery was flooded.

Craters have pockmarked the road after the last few spells of rain. The water
on Saturday hid them but made the ride even more challenging.

Several two-wheeler riders were wading through the water while pushing their vehicles.

There was waist-deep water on both the airport and the Ultadanga-bound flanks, near Kaikhali, Haldiram’s, Teghoria and airport’s gate No. 1.

The base of the flyover from VIP Road that leads to the airport’s terminal building was flooded at both ends.

Airport sources said at least eight plane parking bays were flooded near the aerobridges but flight operations were not affected.

An international plane could not park in its designated spot because of the flooding at the airport. It finally got space near airport’s gate No. 4.

Efforts to drain out the water from the airport failed because the adjoining areas were flooded, too.

Jadavpur resident Sneha Dutta who had a morning flight to Mumbai said she barely made it in time.

“I had started from home at 7.30am and it took me over two hours to reach the airport. Traffic was crazy and the app cab crawled and sputtered as we drove from the Haldiram’s intersection to the Kaikhali crossing,” said Dutta.

Parts of Major Arterial Road that offers an alternative route to the airport were also flooded at Chinar Park. This led to snarls from City Centre II to the flyover that leads to VIP Road from New Town.

There were snarls on Jessore Road, too, and airport-bound vehicles from places like Madhyamgram and Barasat had a trying time reaching the airport.

Many fliers, commuters and residents of these areas took to social media to warn others about the traffic snarls and also lashed out at the authorities.

Arkaprava Bhar, a New Town resident who was headed to the airport, posted on Facebook: “If you’re catching a flight, make sure to leave early and give yourself at least an extra hour. The roads, especially around Haldiram’s on VIP Road, are really bad and stand still traffic due to the heavy rain.”

Residents of complexes like Poddar Vihar, Space Circle on VIP Road near Haldiram’s and others said they had a harrowing time crossing the road. “The road in front of our complex is under waist-deep water,” said Manoj Sharma, a resident of Poddar Vihar.

A resident of Koyla Vihar said they had to take their cars out of the parking lot and park them in front of Haj House on VIP Road.

A senior official of the state public works department (PWD), which is in charge of maintaining the drainage network along VIP Road with the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said the drainage pits were choked with construction waste in many places.

“We had to deploy teams of workers who found that the drainage pits were choked because of construction slurry and waste, especially in areas where there is Metro construction work,” said the official.

Debraj Chakraborty, the mayoral council member in charge of sewerage and drainage in the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, said the drainage pumping station at Chinar Park worked to its capacity and they had also deployed additional pumps.

“There was heavy rainfall. We have also found out that construction slurry from the Metro (New Garia-Airport, Orange line) construction sites choked the drainage in the area,” said Chakraborty.

The chief public relations officer of Metro Railway, Kaushik Mitra, said: “We totally disagree. We have stringent rules and they are followed. No construction slurry or waste is dumped inside gully pits and drainage lines of VIP Road.”

A senior airports authority of India (AAI) official said they would hold a meeting with all stakeholders and urban local bodies surrounding the airport to discuss the waterlogging problem.