Chennai will flood again thanks to govt indifference
How encroachments on the Ennore Creek are dealt with will decide whether the city will survives the next deluge
Mumbai went underwater last week; Chandigarh the week before, and Ag art ala, Bengal u ru and Ahm edabade arlie ron during this southwest mon soon. The jury is out on whether the extreme rain events were caused by climate change. But there is little doubt that detrimental land-use change played a big part in turning the rains to floods. Heavy, erratic and extreme rainfall is now unavoidable. But what are we doing to protect ourselves and make our cities less flood prone?
Exactly one year ago, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs submitted its report on the 2015 Chennai floods. The report concluded that“encroachment of lakes and river beds played a major role in causing massive flood in Chen nai .” Noting that the lessons from Chen nai floods are“an eye-opener and other cities must also learn from it,” the committee urged the state government to “check mafia involved in illegal construction for business and usurping water bodies for their real estate business.”
The Tamil Nadu government has been quick to use the floods as an excuse to evict the poor from their dwellings on the margins of Chennai’s stinking rivers. But, it has done nothing to check the“mafia .” The largest conversion of wetlands into real estate in Chen nai is happening on the sprawling En no re Creek to the north of the city. The crime of encroaching is being committed by an organised body of offenders led by Public Sector Units, and facilitated by the very agencies that were set up to protect the environment.
Kosasthalaiyar, Chennai’s lesser known river is also its biggest. K os as th alaiy ar ex its to sea through the 8,000 acre backwaters of the En no re Creek. Seen solely from a flood mitigation perspective, what Chennai does to the Kosasthalaiyar and the Ennore Creek will decide whether the city will survive or succumb with the next above-average rains.
In his submission to the parliamentary committee, former home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi defended the lapses of the National Disaster Management Authority( ND MA) by claiming that it is not possible to prepare for a once-in-a-century disaster. This was echoed by the then chief minister of TN Ms. Jay al al itha a who declared that“swift rescue and relief alone are indicator sofa good government .” Both responses are attempts to norm ali sea man-made disaster and gloss over the pathology of urban development .
When the K os as th alaiy ar floods–and flood it will – and the lives of Chennai residents are imperilled, it should be remembered that those in power could have, but did nothing to ave rt certain disaster. Like the 2015 floods, the next Chennai floods too will be man-made.