The monsoon arrived in Kerala on Sunday, more than a week before schedule. It took a day to advance towards Maharashtra, and reached Mumbai on Monday, 16 days before its expected arrival - the earliest onset of the season in at least 75 years. Normal life in the city, which has experienced its wettest May in the past 107 years, was thrown off gear. Its low-lying areas were inundated, public transport was badly hit, and uprooted trees aggravated traffic snarls. Much of the disruption was admittedly because the downpour was unanticipated. The city's municipality had set a deadline of June 7 to complete the desilting of drains. It was able to undertake a little more than 70 per cent of this task before the rains arrived. Since the catastrophic floods of 2005, steps taken by the BMC widening stormwater drains and adding pumping stations, for instance - have reduced the monsoon-related problems of Mumbaikars to an extent. However, the BRIMSTOWAD project, initiated to overhaul the city's drainage system after 2005 tragedy, remains incomplete. Designed more than 150 years ago to deal with 25 mm of rainfall per hour, spread out through the monsoon season, the city's drainage system is ill-equipped to deal with the recent changes in weather patterns relatively short but intense downpours. On Monday, for instance, several parts of Mumbai received 170 mm to 250 mm rain. The problem gets compounded because the catchment areas of some of the natural water bodies the Mithi River, for instance have been taken over by real estate. Reclaiming this land might be difficult. However, stopping garbage dumping into water bodies could substantially improve their health and ability to absorb the rains. Several parts of the country have experienced an unusually wet summer this year. Last week, Bengaluru was battered by rainfall. Like Mumbai, Karnataka's capital, too, hasn't invested much in drainage overhaul, and the city has lost most of its lakes. Similarly, Delhi, which has received nine times the normal rainfall in May, hasn't revamped its drainage system since 1976. The crisis speaks of a governance crisis, even though the municipalities of Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru are amongst the country's richest. It's time they and their counterparts in other parts of the country recognised that dealing with weather vagaries is a key part of their mandate. Flooding and waterlogging incidents are not irritants these hurt the economy, affect people's livelihoods and claim lives.