Less than an hour of rain brings Hyderabad’s IT corridor to a standstill

A spell of rain lasting less than an hour brought Hyderabad’s IT corridor to a near standstill on Tuesday evening. Waterlogging, traffic congestion, overcrowded Metro stations and a lack of traffic regulation left thousands of commuters stranded for hours across key stretches.

Hyderabad: It rained for less than an hour in Hyderabad on Tuesday. The pleasure of the first substantial rain of the season, however, was fleeting, as people in Hyderabad experienced pain for the rest of the evening.

The main roads in the entire IT corridor region came under sheets of water, the metro stations were literally packed to the rafters with commuters, who chose it, in a desperate move to avoid the chaos unfolding on the city roads.

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Those with private vehicles got trapped in their cars and two-wheelers for hours. The traffic gridlocks snaking through the main roads of Gachibowli, Kondapur, Ikea junction, KPHB and all other nearby regions crawled, making the entire evening quite miserable for all.

The most common refrain among the frustrated commuters was “If a spell of rain that lasted for less than an hour could do so much damage, what else do we have to experience when monsoons become active?”.

By Tuesday 7 pm, when the thunder showers relented, the glass facades of the IT corridor looked less like a bustling tech hub and more like a backdrop of a huge stationary parking lot. Pictures posted on X and other social media platforms by frustrated and angry tech workers, depicted red taillights of four-wheelers, caught in waist-deep waters, stretching as long as the eye could see, along multiple stretches in the IT corridor.

A large number of people complained about the absence of traffic police personnel to control the gridlocks. “Heavy traffic chaos continues in Gachibowli even two hours after the heavy rain. Commuters are taking over an hour to cover just one kilometre. Raidurg metro station and main road are totally packed. There are no traffic police personnel visible to regulate vehicles. Stranded motorists and passengers have been left to their fate,” V Chandramouli, posted on X.

On the inundated main roads, the scene was one of exhaustion, as the downpour impacted every aspect of life. Desperate commuters tried ride-hailing apps, but the extreme demand caused delays, as the cost of travelling skyrocketed. “There is no driver brave enough to take-on the waist deep waters at Ikea and Hitec city bottlenecks. It is next to impossible,” another frustrated commuter said.

While the city survived the first splash of the rainy season, the evening was also a stark reminder for lakhs of commuters about how the major metro continues to remain unprepared to handle monsoons.