Billionaires in Boats, Epsilon Bloats & Cars Afloat: How Uber-rich Are Surviving in Bengaluru Floods

As Bengaluru remains inundated in floodwater on Day 3, desperate families are left scrambling for hotel rooms amid soaring prices. The rooms which cost at around Rs 10,000-20,000 a day on average are now costing Rs 30,000-40,000 as luxury houses in the city were flooded after heavy rains on September 5.

Meena Girisaballa, CEO and founder of PurpleFront Technologies said her family spend Rs 42,000 to spend a night at a hotel on Old Airport Road as their luxurious house in Yemalur was flooded, Times of India reported.

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The hotels in Whitefield, Outer Ring Road, Old Airport Road and Koramangala were fully booked till Friday. Meanwhile, people were unable to get rooms despite sky-rocketing prices.

The resident said that they thought that they could stay in the first floor of their villas until the floodwaters receded, but the power backup ran out and there were no choices left except to move to hotels.

People associated with the hospitality sectors said that guests were booking rooms for 10-15 days as they expect that it will take more time for their homes to get cleaned and refurbished after the water seeps away.

Billionaires in Boats

Epsilon, home to Bengaluru’s corporate and business elite, gone from being a utopia of the rich to a mess. The city’s most exclusive gated community, home to billionaires like Rishad Premji, Byju Raveendran and Varun Berry got flooded after torrential rains on Sunday night.

Most of the people had to be rescued in boats while the neighbourhood looked like a ghost town as the residents shifted to hotels. Visuals from the area showed houses submerged while expensive furniture floating in water.

Luxurious Cars Washed Away

Among the billionaires who were affected by the floods include Unacademy’s Gaurav Munjal, who posted a video of his evacuation in a tractor. Ishaan Mittal, a managing director at venture capital fund said that 300 families from his society were evacuated while there was no electricity at the apartment.

Visuals of the elite society also showed submerged and some floating German and Italian cars, which were once prized possession of their owners.

Some vent their Anger

Amid the flooding and rain havoc, many industry leaders and corporate heads took to Twitter to vent their anger at the problems faced by the people in Bengaluru.

Biotechnology industry veteran Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has termed the rain havoc as “devastating” and said the city has never faced flooding at such a scale. Both the government and developers need to take collective responsibility to address water-logging, the Executive Chairperson of Bengaluru-headquartered biopharmaceuticals company, Biocon, said.

Information technology industry veteran T V Mohandas Pai said the havoc was due to heavy rains was a result of multiple factors, including bad governance, high corruption and lack of urban reforms. Both political leaders and bureaucrats have failed the citizens, the former Chief Financial Officer of IT major Infosys Ltd said on the floods in parts of Bengaluru following two days of torrential rains.

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