Raining problems

Flooding is no longer just a rural nightmare

Mumbai, India’s financial capital, has yet again cut a sorry figure after a bout of torrential rains brought the city to a complete standstill. The flooded streets, submerged railways, and the disruption to the lives of millions of Mumbaikars already point to an embarrassing state of affairs. What makes this unedifying snapshot worse is the fact that this has fast become the norm, not the exception. Notwithstanding the fact that Mumbai received an abnormally high level of rainfall on Tuesday – around 320 mm, which was 30 times the average and brought back memories of the 944 mm rainfall the city received in July 2005 – the true reason why the city faltered yet again is the official apathy of the civic administration. 

The flip side to the hectic efforts by civic bodies after the rains is a tale of unplanned and ill-advised development such as reckless destruction of mangroves and allowing the Mithi river to be choked with garbage. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is the richest municipal corporation in the country with an annual budget in excess of Rs 25,000 crore and yet, far from being Shanghai, each monsoon, Mumbai is allowed to be consumed in its own potholes. To be sure, this type of flooding is starting to happen in several other cities as well. Urban floods have emerged as a new challenge in recent years due to poor drainage and unplanned infrastructure development in Indian cities. The noteworthy events of such deluges are Mumbai (2005 and again this year), Surat (2006), Srinagar (2014), Chennai (2015) and Bengaluru and Chandigarh in the current monsoon season. 

While this tale unfolds in the cities, monsoon-related flooding continues unabated in rural and semi-urban areas as well. Large swathes of rural India reeling from floods, too, is not a new development. What is worrisome across the board is the lack of preparation on the part of the state governments to deal with the destructive effects of floods. Already, close to a thousand lives have been lost, and crops, livestock, property and infrastructure worth crores of rupees have been destroyed in widespread floods in Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and other states. More damage cannot be ruled out as the monsoon has entered another active phase. There is no gain looking at data that suggests that the overall annual economic losses due to floods, as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), seem to be on the wane. For one, in absolute terms they are increasing; the dichotomy could be the result of a contraction of agriculture’s, particularly the crop sector’s, share in the GDP. Moreover, the GDP numbers of the flood-prone states show a sharp spurt in annual losses. 

Nearly 40 million hectares, or about 12 per cent of the country’s land mass, is perpetually liable to flooding and this area – either in Bihar or in Mumbai – is well demarcated. Yet, governments routinely fail in creating lasting flood-proofing measures. In rural areas, for instance, they should strengthen river embankments, de-silt riverbeds, regularly clean drainage channels and construct check dams. In urban areas, the focus should be on addressing the infrastructural inadequacies such as too much surface area being concretised and improper sewerage and sanitation leading to blocking of drains. Lastly, the system of flood forecasting also needs to be revamped.