Bengaluru: Namma City Bengaluru is desperately craving for an immediate attention of the authorities concerned. The recent heavy rains has exposed how Bengaluru is vulnerable to floods, if the civic authorities fail to take necessary measures and stakeholders remain as mute spectators. It is not the first time that the low-lying areas were flooded with rain water. Earlier too, some areas were flooded with rain water, but the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorities did not take concrete measures to prevent future flooding.

Almost as a knee-jerk reaction, the authorities deputed conservancy workers to remove silt from the open drains. They have conveniently forgotten their responsibility to remove encroachments of storm water drains that carry rain water to the nearest lakes, thus avoiding floods at low-lying areas in the city.

Ironically, Mayor BN Manjunatha Reddy tried to wash his hands off by merely repeating the naked truth – encroachment of storm water drains – that caused floods at various areas, including Kodichikkanahalli and Bilekanahalli in Bengaluru South. The Mayor said the BBMP wanted to clear encroachment of storm water drains but some builders got stay order from the High Court against clearance of encroachment of storm water drains. He has no answer about the `sincere’ efforts already made or being contemplated by the BBMP’s legal cell to vacate the stay order.

The Fire and Emergency Services personnel were pressed into service to evacuate the residents from rain-affected areas to safer areas. Many houses at Kodichikkanahalli and Bilekenahalli and surrounding areas were being flooded regularly with rain water. It took more than three days for the residents to return home. The Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) took four days to restore electricity in the rain-affected areas.

More funds but little progress

The state government had announced allocation of Rs 800 crore for the development of storm water drains. Though de-silting of some of the major storm water drains was taken up, the civic authorities have not extended similar works to other storm water drains in the city. The other disgusting thing is that BBMP authorities commenced de-silting work during monsoon instead of taking up such work in summer and completing before the onset of the monsoon. The result: Most of the de-silting works are either incomplete or yet to be taken up.

According to Ravichandar, civic evangelist, the primary problem for flooding of low-laying areas is the encroachment of storm water drains by developers, citizens with the connivance of the civic authorities. “The authorities have not filed caveats in courts to stop the encroachments and most stay orders have been ex-parte. Now they blame the stay orders for their inaction!

To fix this, BBMP needs to send a strong message of zero tolerance by demolishing the encroachments starting with the more powerful, influential set. They should put out the storm water drain alignment on GIS maps on the net to bring in complete transparency,’’ Ravichandar said.

He said that there are other problems such as the buildings on lake beds, low-lying areas; the competency of the BBMP, lack of accountability due to multiplicity of agencies and the corruption woes that plague city works. “Fixing the flooding problem is a multi-year project and will require political will and administrative firmness with responsible citizenship to make it happen,’’ he said.

Need to save city from dying

According to Kathyayini Chamaraj, Executive Trustee, CIVIC Bengaluru, the flooding and the attendant damage in Bengaluru point to the total failure of city governance. Kathyayini said while those in charge of the city seem to be living in some stratosphere, dreaming of elevated corridors, steel flyovers and high-speed rail links, all costing upwards Rs 25,000 crore, and consider that as `development’, the very sustainability of the city has been destroyed.

“Our air, water and soil are all polluted to such an extent that we are living in a dying city and we may have to evacuate it within the next 10 years or so. We have created a concrete jungle. We have drained our lakes, built upon them and the storm water drains, concreted road-side drains and even the vacant space around our private homes so that no water percolates to the ground and then we are shocked when our roads are like rivers and our homes are like lakes. And yet our city managers want to reduce the open space, parks and playgrounds so that they too get concretized,” she said.

Preventive measures

Meanwhile, Ashwin Mahesh, a social technologist and former NASA scientist, opines a lot of problems will be addressed if the city can take two preventive measures. “The first preventive measure is rainwater harvesting which cannot be the responsibility of property owners alone. A large part of the city’s surfaces are the roads that are owned by the BBMP. In addition to telling the citizens to harvest water in their homes, the BBMP should be harvesting the rains on the roads too. Along the shoulder drains, at regular intervals of 100 meters or so, the BBMP should dig soak pits to absorb rainfall. This will reduce needless flow of water to lower elevations, causing flooding,’’ Ashwin Mahesh said.

According to him, the second preventive measure is ensuring the road surfaces and the foundations of roads much better and not burying utilities under the roads. “Unfortunately, the government tries quick fixes, trying to lay white cement concrete on top of roads with weak foundations. This means that the road will crumble again one day, and not only that, every time someone digs the road to drag utility cables across, it accelerates the decay of the road. Rather than wasting Rs 600 crore on shoddy white-topping of roads, it will be better to spend the same money to repeat the successes we are seeing in Tender SURE roads.

Need of the hour

Kathyayini Chamaraj feels that unless we give up our stratospheric dreams and plan for the sustainability of our air, water and soil as the ‘first charge’ on our city’s and state’s resources, we would have preside over the death of this glorious city. “All the city managers’ energies should be directed immediately to prepare a sustainable water resources management policy, bring all water resources under one institution, and go in for massive reclamation of our lakes, storm water drains, plan for rain-water harvesting in every road-side drain, de-silt all surface wells, dig percolation pits, provide 100 per cent toilets with soak-pits or connect all sewerage to bio-gas generating plants, and recycle and use all water locally. May be this will cost Rs 25,000 crore but we will have to save this city from dying,’’ she suggested.