The issue has repeatedly come before the Bombay High Court. Hearing a petition in 2022, the court described open manholes as “death traps” and warned that civic officials could be held personally responsible if anyone died after falling into one. It also asked the BMC to come up with permanent solutions, including protective grills and technology to immediately detect missing or tampered manhole covers.

The court later questioned why only a small percentage of the city’s manholes had been fitted with protective grills. Following the court’s directions, the BMC said it had covered nearly 99 per cent of manholes with protective grills over the past year.

According to civic data, Mumbai has more than one lakh manhole covers, including 74,682 on sewer lines and over 25,000 on storm water drains. Missing covers have been a persistent problem. BMC records show that 791 manhole covers were stolen in 2023, while another 220 thefts were reported between January and June 2024.

The dangers posed by uncovered manholes came into sharp focus after the death of gastroenterologist Dr Deepak Amrapurkar, who was swept into an open manhole during heavy rain in 2017. The incident prompted a series of directions from the High Court to improve safeguards around open drains and manholes across the city.

With heavy rain continuing across Mumbai, Thursday’s incident is likely to renew scrutiny of the civic body’s claims that vulnerable manholes have been secured ahead of the monsoon.