Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh have suffered torrential rainfall in the Northeast Monsoon season. The Tamil Nadu coastal region, including the capital Chennai, its surrounding districts of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur, besides Pondicherry and Cuddalore further south, have suffered immense damage and total disruption of normal life from flash floods caused by rain. Worsening matters is the water freely released from major lakes around the capital and from thousands of minor tanks, all of which filled up in the last 10 days at a furious intensity rarely seen. While the misery of thousands of people whose lives have been disturbed is complete, it is once again human failure in advance planning to meet such calamitous seasonal weather phenomena that lies at the heart of the problem.
The freeing of surplus waters of Poondi reservoir and Chembarambakkamm lake led to such inundation that more parts of greater Chennai and its surroundings were inundated, making the rescue of marooned people top priority. The Army, Air Force and National Disaster Relief Force have joined hands with an army of the state’s fire service and police personnel, besides corporation workers. Laudable as the rescue and relief has been, the recurrence year after year of flash floods due to rain is testament to the bad water management planning of generations. The loss of life (about 80 people) has again been high. Ironically, in a few months from now, the state would have used up all its rural and urban water resources and would probably be pleading or fighting in the Supreme Court for Cauvery water from Karnataka.
Monsoon preparedness is a hackneyed phrase encompassing what the government of the day does by way of clearing the drains of silt and preparing emergency medical services and food packets. What no government in the state has done for decades is to put in place proper water management practices by which a substantial portion of annual rainfall can be harvested. Huge amounts of water still flow into the Bay of Bengal — not without helping the ecological cycle by renewing marine life with minerals — even as water tankers, suspected to be owned by minor politicians, get ready to ply dangerously once again in urban areas.
The drains still don’t work properly just as water bodies are invariably encroached upon to create valuable real estate only to become quagmires in the rain, endangering lives. It is India’s fate, even in this age of advanced engineering and technology, that the loss of life be so great. The point is the problems of rain in plenty are forgotten with the last drops of the monsoon. It will be back to business as usual soon. The inability of planners to think ahead and attack the roots of such problems is what drags us back. Tamil Nadu is no exception to an Indian failure.
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