Water leak in ₹1.5-crore apartment in Kolkata: Software engineer shares photo of the ‘scam’ in social media post

A software engineer from Kolkata recently expressed frustration about a water leak in his apartment. Ripudaman posted a photo of the ₹1.5-crore leak in the highrise apartment in Newtown, Kolkata.

He posted the photo of the leak on X (formerly Twitter), expressing disbelief at the situation. He commented that his expensive apartment on the 5th floor of a 16-story building was leaking and called it a “scam”. As a civil engineer, he found the situation hard to accept.

“My room in 1.5CR apartment 5th/16th floor is leaking water. These expensive buildings are such a scam bro! The civil engineer inside me can't comprehend this,” he wrote.

While his bio says he is a software engineer, he later clarified in one of his replies that he had studied civil engineering.

Other social media user soon started replying to the post. One of the said, “Actually that cost only 50L to built or less.” Ripudaman said it would be even less.

Once user advised, “Might be a leakage in the floor above you. Happened with us. Upper floor had a leakage in the pipe and this started happening. If not fixed, drops will start falling slowly. Best is to have standalone house.”

Another user asked for advice, “It's leaking in our home , recently build two rooms upstairs, do you have any idea how to stop this?”

Ripudaman replied, “You have to find the root cause. Like if it's due to plumbing or water accumulation and see page. And then proper sealing is required.”

One user asked, “why this happen? poor quality stuff or poor engineering?” Ripudaman replied, “Both.”

‘Cost-cutting’

“Some intelligent contractor/owner must have thought to install cheap pipes to buy his wife or girlfriend something EXPENSIVE. You paid for his presents and lovely smile exchanges,” one user quipped.

“I know why, because the builder usually cuts the cost when it comes to providing premium waterproofing systems. I have seen big companies (the top 4) opting for a basic waterproofing of yesteryear system for flats worth crores,” wrote another.