Bengaluru: A Bengaluru-based doctor has filed a lawsuit against the city corporation seeking Rs 50 lakh in damages, claiming the poor state of public infrastructure caused him significant physical and mental distress. The 43-year-old Kiran Jeevan filed the lawsuit against the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the city’s civic body, on 14 May.
“Despite being a tax-paying citizen with a right to safe public infrastructure, he has been subjected to continuous physical hardship and mental agony as a result of BBMP’s blatant failure to maintain basic civic infrastructure,” Jeevan’s advocate said in the lawsuit.
“Specifically suffered neck and back pain, which has been medically linked to the jerks and trauma caused while commuting on these treacherous roads,” the lawsuit added.
Incessant rains since Sunday night have once again exposed Bengaluru’s faultlines—inundating entire neighbourhoods, destroying livelihoods, damaging property and causing endless suffering. Jeevan filed his case before the downpour, which has claimed at least three lives in the city in the last 48 hours.
With no elected council for the city corporation since September 2020, the onus of administering one of India’s largest and most densely populated cities has fallen on the state government and officials with little or no accountability. BBMP has been using the heavy rains to deflect questions on poor quality of urban infrastructure, rampant corruption, and decades-old encroachments of lakes and natural waterways, among other issues. Jeevan says that the rains are just an excuse for the BBMP to hide behind.
“When I filed the petition, it was not even raining in Bengaluru. The potholes, the neck pain I have because of it… I have been thinking about this (filing a lawsuit) for a long time now,” he told ThePrint, adding that BBMP has 15 days to respond to his notice.
“I will not stop at this,” he said, adding that he will file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) next if the BBMP does not respond within the stipulated time. Jeevan said that he will also approach the Lokayukta. “I have done everything on my part as a law-abiding and tax-paying citizen. The least the state can do is provide good roads,” he said.
In his petition, Jeevan said he was forced to visit at least five hospitals for back and neck pain, and had to undergo injections and procedures to relieve acute agony. The petition adds that due to hazardous road conditions, Jeevan is unable to travel in autos or two-wheelers, and “uneven and damaged roads severely worsen his spinal and neck condition”.
ThePrint reached BBMP Chief Commissioner M. Maheshwar Rao for comment, but calls to him went unanswered. This report will be updated if and when he responds.
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Residents cope
As rains continued to pound Bengaluru, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, toured the city Monday evening, but this had little or no impact on the condition of those affected by the downpour. “We had identified 210 areas as flood-prone in Bengaluru. Ever since I took over as the Bengaluru development minister, we have fixed flooding issues in 166 (70 percent) of those localities,” Shivakumar said Monday night.
Adding, “Flood prevention work is currently going on in 24 areas, while work will be taken up soon in the remaining 20 areas. We have built 197 km of stormwater drains.”
He also said that the traffic police have identified 132 spots that are flooded during heavy rains, of which issues had been rectified in 82 spots. “We are spending Rs 2,000 crore for storm water drains.”
The meteorological department has issued a ‘yellow alert’ till Friday for Bengaluru, where the state government is holding a mega event in Hosapete Tuesday to celebrate two years in power.
Residents, meanwhile, have no option other than coping. Tractors and boats were used to evacuate people at Sai Layout in Bengaluru South as water gushed into their homes.
Even the BBMP chief commissioner and the civic body’s administrator, Tushar Girinath, were forced to use tractors to assess the damage in several localities they visited Monday.
“Overnight rains and the condition of #Bengaluru roads when monsoon is yet to arrive. Fixing city’s infra is a sore point & our city & its people don’t deserve this,” Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in a post on X.
Overnight rains and the condition of #Bengaluru roads when monsoon is yet to arrive. Fixing city's infra is a sore point & our city & its people don’t deserve this. @BBMPCOMM @BBMPAdmn @DKShivakumar @siddaramaiah @osd_cmkarnataka https://t.co/c0aj98YDA1
— Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (@kiranshaw) May 19, 2025
Elected representatives asked companies, especially those located around the IT corridor, to allow their employees to work from home, since most roads around Manyata Tech Park, Bellandur and other places were completely inundated.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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