The rainfall of 26 July 2005, which deluged Mumbai city and parts of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (mmr), was unprecedented. In the city of Mumbai, water logging has been more or less an annual feature, but not flooding of this kind. It caused floods, the depth of which even reached near first floor levels at many places and almost submerged buses on roads.

Every year, before monsoons, the spectre resurrects, grabs headlines and is buried in a few months. Malnutrition deaths of children in Maharashtra first made news a decade ago. Since then, committees have been appointed, schemes have been announced