Nagpur Family Lifts 45-Yr-Old 2-Storey Home To Beat Cement Road Flooding

Nagpur: As elevated cement roads increasingly leave homes vulnerable to flooding across Nagpur, a family in New Dyaneshwar Nagar near Manewada found an innovative way to stay dry by lifting their entire house. In a rare and striking engineering feat, Rakhunde family raised their 45-year-old, 2-storey ancestral home by 5 feet using nearly 150 hydraulic jacks, avoiding demolition and costly reconstruction.Over the past few years, repeated cement concreting of roads in the area pushed road levels higher than surrounding houses. During monsoons, rainwater gushed into homes that now sat below road level, turning routine rainfall into a recurring crisis. The Rakhundes' house sank nearly 3 feet below the newly built cement road, leading to frequent flooding and constant worry, especially for the elderly members of the family.Faced with the prospect of demolishing and rebuilding the entire structure — a process that would cost between Rs50 lakh and Rs60 lakh — the family decided to explore alternative solutions. Their search led them to a specialised contractor from Uttar Pradesh who used hydraulic jack technology to lift standing structures without damaging the original design and constructed a permanent structure under the house to increase its height.The operation under way at the Rakhunde's residence is both delicate and daring. The 2-storey house, spread across a 1,500 sq feet plot with around 1,000 sq feet of construction on each floor, currently rests on nearly 150 hydraulic jacks. Remarkably, tenants continued to live inside the house on the upper floor even as permanent construction work was carried out beneath it."A new cement road was built in our area, because of which our home was around 3 feet below the road level, leading to frequent flooding," said Rohit Rakhunde. "My parents are old and it was very risky. I initially decided to reconstruct the house with increased height, but the cost was too high. Then I came across a company that lifts houses without damaging the structure."Before finalising the plan, Rohit visited similar projects executed by the contractor in Delhi. Convinced by the workmanship, he went ahead with the project. "The contractor quoted Rs220 per sq feet of construction for lifting the structure, which came to around Rs4.4 lakh, along with Rs4 lakh for materials. The total cost will be close to Rs10 lakh, which is far cheaper than rebuilding the house," he said.So far, the process was smooth. The family claimed that not a single crack appeared in the structure during the lifting. "We have a legal agreement with the company which guarantees that if anything happens to the house within 10 years, the contractor will be responsible," Rohit added.Explaining the technique, contractor Murtuza Hussain, who hails from Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh, said the process begins with dismantling the ground-floor flooring, followed by careful excavation beneath the structure. "Slowly, jacks are placed under key load-bearing points like walls and columns. Once the jacks are installed, the structure remains stable and is lifted uniformly," he said, adding the entire process usually takes 2 to 3 months.As Nagpur continues to grapple with rising cement road levels and inadequate drainage, the Rakhunde family's lifted home stands as a striking example of how innovation and engineering can offer practical solutions to urban flooding woes.