India, Sept. 3 -- Every monsoon, Gurugram seems to rediscover the same question: why does a city that has spent hundreds of crores on stormwater infrastructure continue to flood after a few hours of heavy rain?

The answer is increasingly clear, the city's flooding is not simply a drainage problem. It is a consequence of decades of rapid urbanisation, concretisation, fragmented planning and the disappearance or disruption of natural water channels. It is also a financing question. Gurugram's skyline has largely been built with private capital, but the infrastructure connecting, draining and sustaining that skyline remains overwhelmingly dependent on public agencies.

That disconnect is becoming harder to ignore.

The scale of the city's r...