Terming the Chennai rain fury as a "natural disaster of unprecedented scale", Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar today said it provides a lesson to improve urban planning and improve City governance.
"Chennai is a natural disaster of unprecedented scale... Chennai gives a lesson and we must learn from this lesson and improve our urban planning and improve the City governance which is very essential," he told PTI.
Asked if he describes it as a phenomena of climate change or a man-made disaster, he said "that is a grey area" as experts have a different opinion on whether it is climate change event.
He said if we go with the loss and damage case to the UNFCCC it will say it is not conclusive evidence whether it is normal natural event or a climate event.
"One thing is sure that climate change brings such disasters more frequently. So frequency increases, ferocity increases of untimely rains, of erratic monsoon, of drought, of floods, so all these are caused," he said.
Javadekar said Chennai has one more aspect that all its drains are clogged and encroachments have been done.
"The City government has not done enough to remove all encroachments. Unless you allow the drains to allow to flow freely to the sea, water will be clogged and that is what has unfortunately happened," he said.
The Minister also cited examples of Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir floods, saying in Uttarakhand constructions were done in the river bed itself and in J&K, there was the problem of drainage as well as river-bed problem. "Both were there in Jammu and Kashmir," he said, adding that lessons should be drawn and urban planning should be done properly.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had yesterday conducted separate aerial surveys of the areas battered by the unprecedented rains that have killed 269 people till now.
