Chennai Floods - old problems old solutions
Chennai Floods - old problems old solutions
The Chennai floods brought me nightmares of being stuck in the Mumbai floods of 2005. The problems and solutions I got to then are still relevant.
It was 26th July, 2005. It was about 4pm when everyone at office thought it was better to go home as there was a possibility of flooding. I walked to my office without umbrella at around noon, so I was skeptical. Yet, since I had a 2 hour commute, I thought it was better to start for home. It would be 28th July 3AM before I got home. The entire ground floor of our house was full of muck and silt. It took us 8 days to get everything out of our house. We were lucky to have two storied house.
It was no surprise as those nightmares returned when I saw the pictures from Chennai flood yesterday. Yet, a part of me was disheartened. These were the same problems and 20 years later we haven’t solved them.
The problem of flooding can be solved through design of storm water drains and designing intelligent draining system in general. Storm water is freshwater and Chennai is often short of water during the summer months. Hence a proper water management system is essential.
But the problem is not simply water management system. It is urban planning in its entirety. If there is one area where modern India has done a shoddy job it is urban planning. Our ancestors will be ashamed of what we are doing in cities.
Harappans had better drains 5000 years ago.
Harappan Civilisation 3200BCE to 1200BCE has some of the most elaborate water management systems. It includes a network of below the road drains (seen below from the site www.harappa.com)
The size of some of the drains was astounding.
But modern urban planners are missing the point.
Severe corruption within the urban development related departments at state and city levels has killed any sense of planning or logic in city development. I have commented about bad urban planning for a long time. I am linking below some of my previous articles if you are interested in mistakes of urban planning.
Last call for urban revival
The window to solve urban development problems with minimal problems is closing. India is growing fast and we need cities and urban infrastructure to scale at a pace heretofore unthinkable.
China developed its urban centres faster but it had dictatorial policies and lot of development was done in advance. It is like building muscle capacity of young man. Indian cities are already like a fat middle-aged man. It is going to take a lot of discipline, hardwork and imagination to get Indian cities back on track.
If prime minister Modi wants I can help.