Capital mess

A little downpour has left the national Capital in shambles. Better civic planning is needed

The National Capital Region has really had to battle the fury of the rains this week. Not because the rainfall was inordinately heavy; in fact, old-timers will tell you this monsoon has been below average till now though it is picking up. But unsurprisingly, the city meekly surrendered to even moderate rainfall. Because it just hasn't got its act together.

The devastation caused by two-three days of regular rainfall for this time of the year has upended much of the Capital's famed infrastructure and multiplied the woes of Delhi's residents. Several heart-wrenching stories have been reported from across the city. Bridges, including old ones like the Minto Bridge as also new ones like the Raj Nagar Extension Elevated Road, sank under collected rainwater. While photographs of buses and vehicles submerged below Minto Bridge in the heart of the city have become the new normal, the mind boggles at the lack of planning in constructing an ‘elevated corridor’ if three days of rain can result in the formation of a mini-lake on it. Across the city, a sluggish drainage system that cannot handle even a gush of rainwater, choked as it is with sewage and non-biodegradable materials such as plastics, led to sewers overflowing. The result: Water-logging on the main arterial roads. The city came to a grinding halt as vehicles moved at a snail's pace and the Metro could barely cope with an overflow of passengers. Worse, Ghaziabad's Vasundhara Enclave could not escape a huge cave-in. A 30 feet deep and 20 feet wide crater developed where the road caved in and residents of housing complexes in the vicinity had to immediately vacate their houses. Rightly did the Delhi High Court lash out at the Delhi Government for turning the city into a “tribal city” and asked it to come up with a composite plan to deal with the crisis. At the outset, the disaster should have been anticipated much before the arrival of the monsoon. It is imperative that local authorities start preparations to deal with the monsoon beforehand. Identification of flood-prone areas, ensuring all sewers and drains are cleaned thoroughly so that there are no leakages, seepage and blockages, testing the flood-warning systems and also coordinating with the Indian Meteorological Department are some of the remedial measures that ought to have been taken.

But the real problem with Delhi is different altogether; multiple authorities and agencies including the municipal corporations, the State Government and the Central Government which control police and land means that without perfect coordination nothing will work. Those at the helm of affairs remain at loggerheads and by the time there is clarity on their respective roles and responsibilities, the damage will be impossible to fix. It will take a concerted effort on their part for Delhi's residents to enjoy the cooling of temperatures that the rains bring rather than have to deal with a new headache now that peak summer is behind us. The Capital, compared to cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai which receive up to three times more the volume of rain it does, should not be allowed to drown in chullu bhar paani.