Political Diary
New
Delhi, 17 July 2018
India’s Urban Nightmares
WARNED YET UNPREPARED, WHY?
By Poonam I Kaushish
Kolkata
is craving rain to escape from oppressive heat, Mangaluru is braving floods and
Mumbai is drowning under unprecedented rains resulting in the worst flooding
since 2005, a consequence of
increased concretization and progressively variable rainfall patterns. All
standing mute testimony to a callous, heartless and selfish polity and babudom bereft of cure and consolation. Given
the aam aadmi translates only into
mere sterile statistics to be manipulated at will. Resulting in public outrage
and anger all cursing the Government!
Year after year, it’s the same sorry state
of affairs. Lord Indra’s fury encapsulates our water woes. Whoever said when it
rains it pours miseries, was dead on! Western and Southern India resembles a
disaster zone as water seeps into homes, schools and colleges remain shut,
flights and trains disrupted or cancelled leaving thousands stranded. Notwithstanding the nationwide rainfall deficit stands at 9% and 10% kharif
shortfall specially in the east and northeast.
Questionably,
why do our netagan prioritise floods
only at crises time? Why can’t they
implement basic suggestions? Why is so little done to develop a long-term
response to an annual predictable problem, wherein many die, lakhs are rendered
homeless and property worth crores is lost. Does anyone really care?
Not
at all, given that floods, landslides and cyclones are
a yearly affair in most parts of Mera
Bharat Mahan. Millions of words have been written and millions more will
continue to be written about our deluge miseries but it’s like water off a
duck’s back.
Undeniably,
the Government’s approach is one of criminal casualness --- kaam chalao! It only reacts after things
come to a grinding halt or people have lost their lives. Less said the better
of the levels of unpreparedness among our civic authorities during the monsoon
season. Insufficient cleaning of drains, inadequate pruning of over-burdened
trees, dug up roads, no de-silting et al.
While the severity of the rains can be termed as an ‘act of God’, the mess,
misery and damage is certainly man-made and mostly caused by human error.
Primarily,
because our policies are based on poor land management and myopic flood-control
strategies. In fact, a cursory glance at the Parliamentary Standing Committee
Report on Disaster Management shows that over 67.4 per cent area of the country
is vulnerable to natural disasters like floods, cyclonic winds and storms. Yet
the Government’s couldn’t care less, ke
pharak painda hai.
Moreover,
why do politicians feel that mere sanctioning of hundreds of crores will solve
the problem? Little do they realize that funds doled out instead of helping the
people, are used by most State Governments for purposes other than disaster
management. Bluntly, neither the Central Disaster Management Authority nor the
State Disaster Boards implemented any project properly. Unfortunately, many
civic officials spend years lining their pockets instead of taking care of
civic facilities.
Lack of
coordination between bodies makes matters worse. Delhi has it the worst, with
five independent municipal bodies, the State Government-run Public Works
Department and a police force under the Central Government. Resulting in a perennial mess year round:
Jams, chaos and confusion.
Think.
It is open knowledge that extreme weather events become more frequent and
intense due to climate change. Yet our cities are not designed to withstand these
as nothing is being done to make cities more resilient. Heavy development has
destroyed green spaces and mangrove forests, its natural flood protection resultant
in inadequate drainage system as no amount of man-made storm water drains can
make up for natural drains.
No
effort is being made to reduce the higher population density in urban areas and
make them less vulnerable to the changing climate leading to greater loss of
life and property than rural areas. Extreme rainfall also leaves cities at greater
economic risk. The economic loss to Chennai from the 2015 floods cost $3.5
billion (Rs 21,381 crores).
Scandalously,
a total of 15 States including Rajasthan, Himachal, Kerala and Manipur did not
have a flood forecasting system till August 2016. What makes the situation more
precarious is that most telemetry stations are non-functional. Of the 375
telemetry stations installed country-wide to get real-time data on water level
in rivers and rainfall, 222 (59%) were non-operational. While flood-prone States
have yet to demarcate specific areas vulnerable to flooding.
If extreme
rainfall events become more frequent, cities need to be prepared for extreme
flooding. They aren’t. Storm water networks are either blocked or not adequate, Many of these drains also carry
sewage, which should be separated and treated but is not. With sewage mixing
with storm-water, it is difficult to channel the excess rain water into local
lakes. Garbage also finds its way into and obstructs storm-water drains,
floating out when they overflow.
Changing
urban land use and de-forestation disallows water from soaking
into the ground. Consequently, with concrete and tarmac all around, we are
creating almost a near-total impervious area. Thus, the flood gets amplified in
urban areas because of change in land use. Cities grow without adequate
infrastructure, and the existing infrastructure collapses quickly because it is
designed for minor floods and not extreme events that we are seeing presently.
Alas,
despite guidelines being laid out by the National Disaster Management
Authority, urban planners and managers go for designs calibrated for milder
events to reduce cost.
Environmentalists warn, without redesigning their infrastructure and preparing
for extreme weather, India’s cities will increasingly succumb to its ravages.
Time
now to involve experts and environmentalists who can evaluate ecological
problems, study its context and be involved in decision and policy-making. With
special emphasis on problems created by burgeoning population and its impact on
the local eco-system, growth of hap-hazard housing, environmental insanitation and decay,
drainage and stagnant water bodies. The
focus needs to change from responding to disasters to averting disasters
through better preparedness.
If
there are trees, plants and open areas around, rain water will be absorbed by
the Earth, but if we continue to build concrete jungles, flooding should not
surprise. Undoubtedly, this will come at an enormous cost. We would need
thousands of crores to deal with national calamities like the annual kahein-sukhaa-kahein-baaarh ritual.
If
India is to progress rapidly, its cities cannot come to a halt during monsoons.
Sure, heavy rains will slow things down and there will be some amount of
traffic jams and water-logging, but better planning and preparedness can ensure
that monsoons do not lead to an economic blackout. The Government is making
several ‘Smart Cities’ but where is the civic planning?
In
sum, there are no short-cuts. We need to highlight our priorities, formulate
policies based on needs and find solutions. It is now imperative to re-think
our strategies and approaches to safeguard the environment, build
infrastructure, improve service delivery, establish close links between policy,
research and service with the aam aadmi
at the centre of development.
Our
polity needs to pull up their bootstraps and focus on long-term rather than
short-term planning and shed their passion to pander to vote-banks. One needs
neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to know what should be done. Decisive
indecisiveness will not do. It only holds out promises of more misery, more
wrenching news bulletins and more cries for the Government to act. The time is
far gone to play the pied piper and aver it’s only life, stupid! ---- INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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