Mumbai Floods: How BMC and Co. sank the city again | India Today Insight
Behind the July 2 monsoon flooding lies the city's crumbling drainage and poor coordination among development agencies
On July 2, as life in Mumbai once again crashed to a halt under a monsoon battering, among the thousands left stranded in knee-deep waters was Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray. Thackeray, whose party has ruled the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) since 1997, could not step out of his residence, 'Matoshree', in Bandra as the area remained flooded for almost 10 hours. His son Aditya managed to get out with the help of friends to inspect the affected areas. Hours later, Aditya concluded that it was the 374 mm of rainfall, the second heaviest downpour in a day in 45 years, and not the BMC that was responsible for the mess. "No city corporation in any part of the world could have sustained in such heavy rains," Aditya reasoned.
Mumbai, a reclaimed cluster of seven islands -- Colaba, Little Colaba, Isle of Bombay, Mazgaon, Parel, Worli and Mahim -- receives an average 2,386 mm of rainfall every year, waterlogging the low-lying parts of central Mumbai during heavy downpours. Till 2000, the city's drainage coped well with the rains, flushing out the water into the sea within hours. Unplanned development and the BMC's inefficiency in maintaining and upgrading the city's drainage in the past two decades have severely aggravated the waterlogging problem.
The BMC is the richest civic body in Asia. Its annual budget for 2018-19 was Rs 27,258 crore. This fiscal, it has presented a budget of Rs 30,692 crore. The municipality spends 18 per cent of its budget on civic infrastructure, but that does not reflect in the city's preparedness for rains. Authorities say Mumbai's storm-water drains have the capacity to carry only 50 mm of rain-water an hour. After the deluge of July 26, 2005, when 944 mm of rainfall in a day kept Mumbai submerged for two days, the civic body had undertaken a project to upgrade the drainage system. Fourteen years on, the Brihanmumbai Storm Water Disposal System (BRIMSTOWAD) project has completed the revamp of only 20 storm-water drains, out of the city's 51. More than Rs 20,000 crore has already been spent on the project.
Experts say sewerage passing through storm-water drains, too, is affecting their water-carrying capacity. BMC commissioner Praveen Pardeshi, an IAS officer, has assured that the corporation will take measures to prevent sewage water from entering storm-water drains. Town planner Amita Bhide says the city's development agencies need macro-planning and better coordination to show results.
Therein lies the problem. At present, nine agencies, including the BMC, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Maharashtra government, railways and Airports Authority of India, have a say in the city's development. Poor coordination among them affects planning. Every year, the BMC and MMRDA blame each other for the poor condition of roads in the city. The BMC blames the railways for not cleaning the sewage drains falling in its domain. The railways have an excellent public announcements system, using which messages can be delivered across suburban railway stations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The system can also be used for alerting people in case floods or other calamities, but remains untapped.
Citizen's group 'Mumbai First' is of the opinion that the city needs a CEO position at the helm, who can work independently without pressure from the politicians.
Thackeray has been arguing for years that the BMC be empowered as the sole planning and development authority for Mumbai. The present mayor is a decorative post, with all execution powers concentrated in the hands of the BMC commissioner, who is a representative of the state government. Thackeray is also not averse to the idea of electing the mayor directly from among the people and enjoying executive powers to order other agencies on planning and development issues. The hurdle is no agency wants to lose control over Maximum City and the revenue it generates for it.
MORE FROM INSIGHT | Goodbye, Rahul Gandhi?
MORE FROM INSIGHT | Small is beautiful
ALSO READ | Mumbai rains: Week off to sluggish start as downpour affects flights, traffic, trains
ALSO WATCH | Mumbai rains: Wall collapses due to heavy rainfall, massive traffic across city