| Published on 23-09-2006 In Editorial |
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Written by
N. Murugan IAS (Rtd) |
Despite millennia of experiencing heavy rains during fixed times of the year, India appears to have learned little either about taking precautionary measures or about initiating rapid rescue efforts. Western and parts of south-western India were badly affected during the recent rains. Several news reports had put the death toll from the floods at around 200 in the Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
A number of towns and cities in western and southern India became islands overnight, their residents suffering without shelter, food or clothing. The military deployed helicopters and boats to help hundreds of thousands of marooned people. Evacuation of over 2 lakh people had taken place; all manufacturing industries ground to a halt, while all schools and colleges remained closed. Rail and road traffic remained suspended. And like night follows days we saw infectious diseases sweep through these flooded regions and this spread even to parts of the nation unaffected by the rains. When is India going to learn that prevention is better than cure or that a stitch in time saves nine?
Town planning
Our cities have neglected for long the drainage systems. Usually, town planning rules include a proper level sense in all the construction activities, namely, formation of roads, residential quarters, public buildings in such a manner that water flows during a rainy season from the high to the low level. Even a casual observer can see at the end of roads smaller holes and pits that suck in water and take it to the underground sewerage system.
What has happened over the years is that the maintenance of under ground sewage flow by mixing of drainage water from the surface flow has not been properly checked and maintained. Also, the rain water recharge into ground water is a requirement for keeping the water table replenished to maintain continued water supply to the city. But recharging of ground water during the rainy season can happen only when there are sandy percolation areas available. This can be easily seen when one walks along a small or medium town where space in between two buildings will be earthen in nature. Compare this with the concrete jungle which our cities are today. Even a drop of water cannot seep through, because there is no sandy region in today’s cities. The result is surface flow is very heavy in our streets even when there is a small rain.
Added to this are the encroachments on the various big drainage channels. These channels function to take surplus water away from the city. It was an eye opener for the Chennai city civic managers during the previous rainy season when they found out a huge educational campus was found build on the banks and water spread surface of a big drainage channel such that no drainage could flow and the whole vicinity was flooded. It was a sight to see when water entered the fifth floor of a student hostel housed in a multistorey building of this “famous” Engineering College.
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