The gruesome images originating out of Tamil Nadu, especially Chennai, reeling under water is another reminder to Indian politicians to stop day dreaming. The grandiose plans of building 100 futuristic ‘smart’ cities can be shelved as fixing the existing ones seems to be the most important task on hand.
Experts have termed the incessant rains as effects of global warming, but every local in Chennai knows that his or her misery is the culmination of greed, poor urban planning and a dysfunctional bureaucracy that continues to plague India.
Sadly, the images are not new. Similar images are regularly witnessed in other Indian cities, especially Mumbai and Kolkata during every monsoon, and the mayhem inflicted is more a reflection of the blinker that characterises urban planning in India.
Like all cities in general, Indian cities too were developed next to rivers. But, with years of rapid urbanisation and encroachments, the rivers’ width and depth have shrunk, forcing them to spill over on to the neighbourhoods along the banks. With unplanned concretisation of roads and constructions that have flattened the natural topography, most of the rain water drains off into the storm-water drains instead of being absorbed into the ground. Water bodies, wetlands and lakes near settlements have been transformed into residential complexes, office spaces and other urban amenities, thereby reducing the capacity for natural water-holding to virtually zero.
Also, thanks to the country’s multi-structured bureaucracy that forms a labyrinthine structure, municipal corporations, metropolitan development authorities and various other state and central urban development bodies regularly cross paths, thereby giving them the excuse to bypass accountability.
Every monsoon, civic bodies in Indian cities carry out routine maintenance work of clogged drains, with much fanfare. But every monsoon, those very drains overflow to flood the city. This shows that the civic bodies do little beyond calling for tenders, issuing contracts and wasting public money on measures that do not fulfil the basic criteria of ensuring proper maintenance of drainage systems.
There have been voluminous reports on how to stop this annual exercise in futility, which have only been gathering dust in administrative departments. Most of these reports detail how human factors like indiscriminate land-use, occupation of flood plains, crumbling infrastructure, climate change and indiscriminate disposal of solid wastes are among the principal causes of urban flooding. These reports invariably recommend drastic changes to the institutional framework, early warning systems, design of storm-water drains and urban planning norms. However, the implementation part is almost always left to the mercy of political functionaries. Moreover, even if some of these recommendations are implemented, they create a havoc owing to faulty design of the modules.
In 2005, 944 millimetre of rain had brought Mumbai, the financial capital of India, down to its knees. Ten years later, it’s Chennai’s turn now — a clear indication that we have not learnt our lessons. India’s most cosmopolitan metropolis is yet to deliver on its promised city-planning and infrastructure as it continues to be battered. This year, with just 300 millimetre of rain in June, Mumbai was inundated yet again.
The city’s municipality, which has a budget larger than the state of Kerala, took up the project to double the water receding capacity of the drains to 50 millimetre per hour by 2011. It is now looking at a 2019 deadline post a cost escalation of several times. More than Rs1.2 billion (Dh659.35 million) have been spent in the last 10 years on desilting, widening and deepening the 17.84km stretch of Mithi River in Mumbai by the Mithi River Development Authority, that was formed soon after the 2005 deluge. But the river is nowhere near the immaculate state to which it was envisaged to be restored to.
Particularly, in case of both Mumbai and Chennai, the biggest cause of suffering is manmade, while residents and visitors have also contributed to the crisis in equal measure. Until now, a simple ban on plastics could not be enforced in any of the Indian cities. Also, as land prices increased and affordable housing become a political tool, slums have sprung up and people are fighting for every inch of land, triggering unauthorised constructions.
In India, emulating the West is important, but learning from its achievements is anathema. India aspires bullet trains, but what about increasing the speed of the existing ones and ensuring punctuality? Of late, there is much hype over so-called ‘Smart Cities’. But forget about building them, most officials do not even have the faintest idea about what they mean and how the concept can be turned into a reality.
Unless India forces its politicians to stop playing petty politics after every natural disaster, its cities will continue to suffer from sheer negligence, corruption and political one-upmanship.
Archisman Dinda is a freelance journalist based in Kolkata, India.
