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Political Diary
New Delhi, 18 July 2023
Monsoon Woes
DRAINING INDIA’S MISERY
By Poonam I Kaushish
I stood in knee deep water which
swept away my dream house leaving behind crushed aspirations, burnt desires,
blistered hopes interspersed with cries of anguished despair. Helplessly
watching Lord Indra causing massive destruction and death as torrential rain sluiced Capital Delhi, North India’s cities, villages,
roads, crippling train services, triggering
landslides in Himachal and Uttarakhand, paralyzing daily life, wrecking economy,
crippling agriculture, inflicting damage to infrastructure, disrupting
business, tourism leaving thousands homeless bringing
everything to a grinding halt. Whoever said when it rains miseries, it
pours, was dead on!
Look at our obtuse
planners. Scandalously, 25 bridges built in 22 kms stretch at an average
distance of 800 m in Delhi obstructed flow of water, silt deposition raised
riverbeds height wherein urban storm-water drains were unable to discharge
water. The polluted and moribund Yamuna river swelled to its highest level in
Delhi since 1978, compounded by shrinking floodplains due to encroachments and
construction, dumping of waste.
Big deal if 200 people died in Himachal and 89 in
Uttarakhand over the last few days. Forcing a
comatose Government to evacuate 100,000 people as water marooned vast swathes in
cities. And not all can be chalked up to natural causes because administrative
apathy, myopic planning and poor inter-State coordination also added to the
deluge.
So fellow countrymen,
let lose the volley of expletives as the story is the same, year in and year
out. Yesterday it was Assam, today Delhi, Himachal is ‘jammed’ with boats,’
tomorrow Assam. And yawn, so predictable is our netas response: an annual nautanki.
Everyone goes through the kaam chalao stereotype
motions ---All lament the crisis. Deluge and relief are freely bandied about. From
Prime Minister, Chief Minster, Opposition Parties all parrot grief and vouch to
help people, even announce monetary compensation etc.
Obviously, they don’t
mean it. Why else would they allow unabated construction, insufficient cleaning of drains, encroachments of sprawling slums
alongside rivers and streams, shoddy management of storm water drains, dug-up roads, no de-silting etc. Underscoring, a stark reality: Government's fiasco and failure
to prepare expertise in predicting rainfall intensity and its impact. Succinctly, disaster management is
a disaster.
While the severity of rains can be termed
as an ‘act of God’, the mess, misery and damage is certainly man-made and mostly
caused by human error. An example: Tamil Nadu has witnessed 8
severe cyclones in 13 years so one expects national and State disaster
management teams would be hands-on to tackle the emergency.
The reality:
Zilch, as preparedness is non-existent. There
is no clear line of communication or coordination among State agencies involved
in search and rescue operations, only families checking on each other.
Questionably, does
anyone care? Given that torrential rain,
landslides and flash floods are an annual affair specially in hill States. Why
do Governments’ only
prioritise floods at crises time? Why does it only react after loss of lives? Who
will be held accountable? And which head will roll?
Officials callously
explain it as record rainfall breaking a 41-year record and record release of over
12 lakh cusecs of water. Sic. Ask them why drainage systems in metropolises are
painfully inadequate to deal with the intensifying vagaries of climate, mum is
the word.
Why are long-term responses not
developed to what is an annual problem? Why aren’t adequate arrangements made
to ensure survivors don’t die of starvation, due to Administration’s ineptitude?
Primarily because people translate into sterile statistics to be manipulated at
will. Standing mute testimony to a selfish polity and Administration bereft of
cure and consolation. All cursing the Government!
Shockingly, the frenzy
of ill-thought out development has only worsened impacts of intense rainfall
with most leaders unaware that Himalayan area is the least monitored region
which only highlights how vulnerable we are. In the western Himalayas there is massive
thrust in building infrastructure that has put enormous pressure on the
region’s natural environment. Despite warnings of endangering the fragile
mountain ecosystem, Government continues its contentious Char Dham highway project to
connect four Hindu shrines in Uttarakhand.
Alas, our preparedness
to deal with calamity is rag-tag. Far from having a defence system against
elemental fury, the Central and State Governments bank on hope that any future
disaster would not be as destructive as the last. Think. India is 8th
most vulnerable country in the 2023 Global Climate Risk Index Report with
floods being the most frequent disaster accounting for 52% of calamities total
occurrences.
Undeniably, floods have exacted a
significant financial impact. Experts assert it will inflict a substantial
economic toll resulting in a multifaceted impact on the economy. Significant investments by Government in infrastructure
development: roads and bridges are often washed away by destructive events,
leading to reinvestment thereby delaying progress and exacerbating the financial
burden.
Furthermore, repair
and reconstruction of damaged structures require significant financial
resources and time, disrupting transportation networks, supply chains impacting
local businesses, and tourism leaving a long-lasting effect on regional economy.
Its impact on people’s livelihood, have further deepened the crisis.
In the short term the Administration
must look downwards ---- choked and outdated drainage system designed for water
levels way below what has become normal for the Ganga-Yamuna during monsoons. Authorities need to create
transparent benchmarks for storm-water drains cleaning and de-silting, widen
existing network and bring many uncovered areas under its ambit.
There is dire need to update post-haste
the drainage master plan.. Better management of existing drains, crackdown on
drain encroachments and banning dumping of sewerage in storm-water drains must
be implemented immediately.
In the medium term upstream and
downstream States should work on a regulatory and management schema that is unaffected
by political and electoral developments which will forestall unsavoury
controversy. Such an authority would help better management of dams and
forestall the cascading effect of extreme weather conditions.
In the long term planners will have
to change their outlook. “Road construction must be accompanied by slope
stability actions and retaining structures. This should not be a one-time
exercise but a regular one. Similarly, building construction norms should also
be enforced,” asserted an expert.
The need of the hour is to safeguard
communities and infrastructure across naturally fragile locations. The Government
needs to take firm decisions on new construction approvals, construction
guidelines, vehicle movement and people in fragile locations. Alas, policies
are still being made looking at the mean or long term average of weather
behavior.
Even as NaMo bulldozes ahead with
grand designs to develop India in to a super power, this season’s devastating
floods shows, fixing today’s flood-prone metropolises is a more pressing task. High
time our leaders pull up their bootstraps instead of going through ritual
circus albeit shedding copious
glycerin tears in the hope these would wipe the hear-wrenching cries for help
and facilitate votes at election time. If lakhs are displaced, toh ki faraak painda hai in our billion
plus population?
India 2023 predicament is only a
snapshot of a future world. We need neither a bleeding heart nor blindness to
know what should be done. For if we still elect to do nothing it only holds out
promises of more wrenching news bulletins and more cries. Remember, life is not
collating numbers, but flesh and blood with beating hearts. Can we just let
them bleed? ----- INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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