Q&A with NV Rakhunath: ‘Centre knew things could go wrong’

In the wake of the flood that rocked Chennai, urban planning, or the lack of it, is being pinpointed as one of the main culprits. N.V. Rakhunath, former chief planner with the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), concedes that science was often overlooked in urban planning for the benefit of politics. In an interview with Pradeep Kumar, he recollects how the Tamil Nadu government went on a rapid wetland conversion spree in what was then called Madras, rendering the CMDA into a mere a rubber stamp.

Chennai flood — how mu-ch of it is due to urban planning?
The key objective of urban planning is to see that the city’s population is accommodated. Chennai, which accounts for just one per cent of the total geographical area in Tamil Nadu, is where 12 per cent of the state’s population lives. Now, given such a situation, where will we go for land? The British era Land Acquisition Act made acq-uiring private land a cumbersome process. But the wetlands were government poromboke lands and developing settlements on them represented a cost-effective solution. Arumbakkam, Villivakkam, Kodungaiyur, Mogappair East and West, Ambattur and Nolambur among others were all developed on water bodies that had not even dried out. But I don’t know if urban planners are responsible for the selection of these lands. Planners were asked to develop layouts to accommodate the migrants flocking the city, but the selection was made by someone else based on some not-so-sound philosophy.

The powers that be are claiming unprecedented rainfall as the reason for the floods. How can the government be so unprepared, especially since this is not the first time that floods have hit Chennai?
You know, I witnessed the 1976 floods and everyone of them since. In those days, the police would hold up a megaphone and announce the release of water from Chembarambakkam. But after 1976, the government had the first vice-chancellor of Anna University, P. Sivalingam, who was then the chief engineer of PWD, compile a report on what caused the flooding and how to protect the city from flooding in the future. I am told it was a confidential report because it has not yet been released to the public. So it is not entirely true that the government did not know how things could go wrong.

The colonies you mentioned were developed with assistance from funding agencies such as the World Bank. Didn’t they object to the conversion of wetlands?
(Laughs) The World Bank representatives came visiting after many of these colonies had already been developed. Unsurprisingly, they were shocked to find out wetlands had been converted. They ended funding for the Madras Urban Development Project (MUDP). Subsequently, the government was forced to form a Tamil Nadu UDP and focus on development all around the state.

Kotturpuram was one of the worst affected during the flood. The Slum Clearance Board constructed tenements for slum dwellers on the Adyar river floodplains here. How is that sound logic and how come the CMDA approved these plans?
Squatters from Langs Garden Road along the Cooum river were resettled in Kotturpuram when the Dravida Munnetra Kaza-gham government under M. Karunanidhi took steps to beautify Cooum. How logical is it to remove encroachers along one river only to resettle them along another river is which was done before CMDA’s formation. The CMDA, when it was formed, attracted engineers from several other agencies but there was a real lack of planning experts. The superiors back then shushed many junior planners who objected and decisions were made without application of the mind. I remember, back in 1976, when I was tasked with clearing the layout for Aathma Nagar tenements so that the Slum Clearance Board could evict squatters along the Adyar under the Marmalong bridge, one of my superiors asked me to “just approve it” without asking questions. The CMDA was just a rubber stamp authority even back then.

What is the role of infrastructure projects like highways and elevated corridors in contributing to flooding?
One example is the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS). A study initiated in 1967 — called the Madras Area Transportation Study Unit (MATSU) — suggested developing a mass transit network in three places, along the Buckingham Canal, along Anna Salai and along both these corridors. The government took the easy way out and selected the Buckingham Canal corridor as no land acquisition was needed. The Public Works Department objected but their hand was forced into giving consent for the project. Thus, a 100m wide major flood carrier, which was already reduced to 90m due to encroachments, was shortened to a mere 10m due to the MRTS project.

How can the government combat encroachments?
There are no buffers on our water bodies. What this means is that even the officials don’t know just how much of river has been encroached.

In retrospect, could anything about Chennai’s development have been done differently?
Can we stop migration? No. But we can keep it under control. How? For that to happen, we need a policy level rethink. When MGR was the chief minister, he wanted Trichy or some central district in Tamil Nadu to be the seat of power so that Chennai’s development could have been purely commercial. That way, the State could have ensured equitable development and checked migration into Chennai. Secondly, developing wetlands using a scientific method could have limited the flood impact. By deepening the beds and restricting plot development only to the foreshore, the impact of rainfall would be minimised as rain water will collect in the bed. But such things, when it comes to implementation, need political will. Third is corruption. If you look at some of the Slum Board tenements, they are about 30 years old but the structure is so worn down that a flood of this nature could destroy them. Why? Because when building contracts are given to people with political affiliations, the person will only use sand instead of cement.

What is the way forward for Chennai?
So far none of the Indian cities have come up with a sustainable solution as far as limiting impacts of natural and man-made disasters are concerned. Not Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata or any other city. I read somewhere that Tokyo has built these large underground water storage tanks (sumps), just beneath its roadways. It traps all the rainwater and stores it, discharging water safely into drains. Why can’t we build such sumps, at least near reservoirs like Chembarambakkam? Water can be stored and discharged even during summer months, which would make the Adyar a beautiful, perennially flowing river.

But the issue is that the government has a way of prioritising its problems. Some solutions are deemed unnecessary and only when a disaster strikes are their eyes opened up to how things could have been better. Another thing to do for the government is to go back into archives and pull out the pre-Independence era village maps. Let them study the terrain and find out where the drain connecting links were situated. They have to identify lake and canal boundaries and try to revive those water bodies. Not all can be revived but reclaim at least some of them. So, there is no dearth of solutions. The real question, however, is whether the government is willing to pay the cost to wipe the errors?

Can the floods be considered a collective folly or is there one particular person or agency to blame for it? Should this be investigated at all?
It should be investigated. But after that, every agency and individual will be absolved of blame. Because, that’s the way it is.

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