Gurugram is drowning in its own choices

Once again, Gurugram has come to a standstill. A brief but intense spell of rainfall—100 mm in just four hours—has caused massive traffic jams along NH-48, flooded streets, and brought life to a halt in the so-called ‘Millennium City’. This has become an annual ritual. Extreme weather events driven by climate change have become increasingly frequent across India, with the monsoon often unleashing massive volumes of rain in short duration. We have reached a point where, almost every year, the Yamuna in Delhi swells above the danger mark while in Gurugram the water has nowhere to go. The same story plays out in other places like Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, where unchecked development magnifies intense downpours into devastating floods, as seen this year. In Gurugram, public anger spills onto social media after every deluge, with countless posts squarely blaming the government for the city’s state. Yet the outrage is fleeting—after a few days of disruption, anger fades, the media moves on, life returns to routine, and the cycle resets—until the next flood.

But this is not just about weather. It’s not just poor governance or overwhelmed infrastructure. Gurugram’s floods are not natural disasters. They are human-made crises—caused by decades of reckless urbanisation, environmental neglect, and the collective silence of its citizens.

At the heart of this crisis lies the destruction of the very systems that once protected the region. Gurugram was never built to handle such massive expansion. The Aravalli hills, among the oldest mountain ranges in the world, stretch across this region and serve as crucial ecological buffers. The Aravallis’ quartzite rock formations serve as vital groundwater reservoirs. Their fractured, weathered surfaces act as natural recharge conduits, allowing monsoon water to percolate into aquifers. Moreover, the sandy foothills—locally known as bhood—are highly porous and function as excellent recharge zones, absorbing surplus runoff from the rocky slopes and replenishing the groundwater table. Vast stretches of the Aravallis and their bhood foothills have been razed for highways, real estate, and luxury housing. Forest corridors have been severed, causing rising wildlife fatalities on high-speed roads. With recharge zones destroyed, groundwater replenishment has collapsed, natural flood buffers have disappeared—and Gurugram now finds itself officially designated a groundwater “dark zone” by the Central Ground Water Board, where extraction far outpaces recharge.

Yet, these same housing societies with views of the Aravallis are sold as premium properties. Few buyers question how or why these homes exist in ecologically sensitive zones. The silence is deafening as trees in the Aravallis are felled, with only a handful of aware citizens raising their voices through petitions. Complaints only surface when rain floods basements and drowns cars. It’s not that people are unaware—it simply doesn’t affect their everyday lives until it does.

Perhaps no case better illustrates this systemic failure than Najafgarh Jheel. Once a seasonal lake and wetland system that connected Gurugram to the Yamuna floodplain, it functioned as a natural stormwater outlet. During the monsoon, floodwaters from Gurugram would accumulate here before draining into the Yamuna via the Sahibi River (Najafgarh Drain). Today, much of the jheel is under threat from urban sprawl. Although organisations like Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heriatge (INTACH) have petitioned the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to notify the jheel as a protected wetland under the Wetlands Rules, 2017, the Haryana government has resisted. While satellite data shows the lake expands to over 5,000 acres during monsoons on the Haryana side as put forth in the Haryana Environment Management plan (EMP), the state maintains that only around 75 acres qualify as a wetland.  In response, the NGT has ordered a third-party audit to determine the jheel’s actual size. But despite its crucial role in flood mitigation, there is no sustained public movement in Gurugram to save it.

This lack of civic urgency is baffling, especially in a city that boasts one of the highest concentrations of corporate offices, well-educated professionals, and globally connected residents. If even here the destruction of green and blue spaces goes unchallenged, what hope do other cities have?

It wasn’t always like this. During the British era, Gurugram had a well-designed system of 63 check dams or ‘bunds’ to manage water flow. These bunds—along with seasonal lakes and drainage channels—helped direct rainwater into the Najafgarh basin. Today, only four of those 63 check dams survive. The rest have either been encroached upon or rendered useless due to construction. Natural storm water paths have been replaced by concrete roads, housing colonies, and malls, while existing channels such as the Badshapur drain have been narrowed and concretised. So, when the rain comes, there’s nowhere for the water to go except into basements, roads, and parking lots.

Meanwhile, illegal construction continues unchecked in the Aravallis. Despite Supreme Court and NGT rulings, and the Union Environment Ministry’s 1992 Aravalli Notification that clearly protects gair-mumkin pahad (uncultivable hill land) from mining and construction, these areas have been carved up for real estate. Even the Bandhwari landfill, operating within the Aravalli forest since 2008, continues to leach toxic waste into groundwater and pollute air in nearby villages. These are not isolated policy failures; they reflect a pattern of systemic disregard for ecological health.

What makes all this more troubling is that these choices are not being made in ignorance. Gurugram’s residents are not uninformed. They are some of India’s most literate, mobile, and resource-rich citizens. And yet, many continue to buy homes built on reclaimed wetlands, flaunt views of destroyed forests, and stay silent when new projects pop up in eco-sensitive zones. The government and developers respond to market demand. If the demand didn’t exist, the supply wouldn’t either.

So, the next time Gurugram floods, before pointing fingers at the authorities or the weather, we must ask ourselves: what did we do when wetlands were drained? When forests were cleared? When town planning norms were violated? Did we speak up? Or did we scroll past?

If citizens had consistently questioned these decisions—if they had refused to buy into illegal or ecologically damaging projects—the current crisis could have been averted. But the desire for short-term convenience and aesthetic luxury has overridden long-term sustainability. And now, that concrete comes at a cost—one paid in floodwaters, broken infrastructure, and lost ecological heritage.

Gurugram is drowning in its own choices. Until its citizens hold themselves accountable—as much as they hold the government to account—the monsoon will keep washing away the illusion of progress.

Ritu Rao works with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) on various natural heritage projects

Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth