Editorial: An annual affair

Among the several photographs captured by our intrepid shutterbugs during the course of the monsoon on Tuesday, a stand-out image featured Chennaiites, riding their two-wheelers and cars on an inundated stretch that was cordoned off on one side by the metro rail barricades bearing the signage: Inconvenience today for better tomorrow. The irony was not lost on us, for whom the arrival of the northeast monsoon evoked a sense of deja vu with regard to the lack of preparedness to mitigate the impact of the downpour. The rains that began pounding Chennai and its neighbouring districts on Monday night witnessed the sights that have now become emblematic of this part of the country, during the period of October-November.

Citizens in low lying areas including Velachery, Madipakkam, Guindy found their neighbourhoods inundated while parts of north Chennai including Kolathur, Perambur, Korattur and Vyasarpadi were waterlogged to an extent that made motoring next to impossible. In fact, boats were pressed into action to evacuate people from their flooded homes in AGS Colony, Velachery. The sad state of affairs was underscored by how several owners of automobiles ended up parking their cars on the flyover, with some people parking two wheelers in the corridors of high rises. The onslaught was felt even in the affluent localities such as Anna Nagar, T Nagar, Boat Club Road, Ashok Nagar, Adyar.

So what exactly is this phenomenon that we are dealing with year after year? And haven’t we learned anything from the deluge of 2015? If this question were posed to those at the receiving end of such slipshod infrastructural execution, you might get a firm negative. The condition of storm water drains, referred to as the chief among our saviours, is as pitiable as it has been years ago. In the absence of interlinking, many drains have failed to accomplish their purpose, drain out the excess rain water and leave the streets usable. In several regions that have remained the usual suspects for inundation, the construction of such drains has been taking place at a snail’s pace rendering them even more vulnerable.

For instance, Ambattur, which is home to over 1,000 industries and several hundred residential neighbourhoods, is one of the high risk zones owing to the sluggish progress on SWD work by the Greater Chennai Corporation under the Kosasthalaiyar Basin Project. Denizens in regions such as Chromepet have bemoaned the condition of the canals that have been clogged and encroached upon, making the flooding a yearly recurrence. It’s a sentiment that finds resonance among Avadi residents who believe that failure to desilt the storm water drain network has rendered them susceptible to flooding.

A release from the TN government said that between October 1 and 14, Tamil Nadu received 10.52 cm of rain which is 68% higher than the normal rainfall during this period. Chennai recorded an average of 6.9 cm of rainfall over the last 24 hours. Tamil Nadu’s popular weather blogger Pradeep John had forecast that many parts of the city could breach the 250 mm mark over Tuesday night. Pulling up the civic administration might seem like the easiest thing to do, but one must remember that aside from town planning, numerous factors contribute to scenes such as those witnessed during the onset of the monsoon. Our entire approach to urban development needs to undergo a sea change, else we are bound to revisit the same travails year after year.