Mumbai face to face with endless rains and the lack of city planning

I have been a resident of Mumbai for close to ten years now. So, I can safely claim to be sufficiently experienced to comment on the monsoon preparedness of this city. Ten years may seem to be a long time, however little seems to have changed in terms of how the city administration deals with the copious amount of rains that lash this city year after year.

Before getting into the city planning with respect to the rains however, I would like to share a bit about the general geographical layout of this city. The city of Mumbai, including the suburban areas, is structured in a fashion that majority of the office spaces are situated in certain pockets of the city, separate from the residential areas which are otherwise scattered far and wide. For this reason, people might have to travel even for 2-3 hours daily (one side) to reach their workplaces. This humongous task is made possible by the huge network of local trains that crisscross the city, with trains scheduled to run at impressive frequencies. This train network is rightly termed as the lifeline of the city. Even so, thousands still commute by roads daily to and from their workplaces. Additionally, Mumbai being the commercial capital of the nation, there are thousands and lakhs of individuals who must travel daily as a part of their jobs.

The abovementioned geographical distances, as it is, ensure that life is never easy for Mumbaikars. The local trains, even though, keep the city up and running, however, their physical condition leaves a lot to be desired. These are Non-AC trains, whose doors do-not close automatically; as a result, one can find hundreds of individuals hanging from the doors of every local train that passes by, sometimes even resulting in fatalities.

The train stations, especially, the low-lying ones often get filled up with water to such an extent that is possible even to swim in it. Hence, whenever the rains are beating down mercilessly, one will start experiencing frequent delays or cancellations of these trains. To add to the abovementioned infrastructure woes, the city also experiences one, or often, multiple building/bridge collapses every year leading to loss of lives and further inconvenience to the commuters.

The condition of the roads is no better, in general, and particularly during the long rainy season (incidentally the monsoons in Mumbai stretch from June to September). The size of the potholes invariably widens, and the newly built roads start to appear potholed after the first rains itself. Year after year, deaths are reported of people accidentally falling into manholes, or getting electrocuted, while walking during rains.

As if all this was not enough, during certain years when the rains are particularly unrelenting and Mumbai experiences heavy flooding, the city infrastructure completely breaks down. In recent history, the year 2005 was a particularly difficult one for Mumbai. I, personally, was not a witness then, but I certainly got a flavor of it last year, on 29 August 2017. Rains were particularly heavy and unrelenting on that day. By noon, people had started realizing the severity of the situation, however, prior to it there were hardly any warnings that could have been helpful to people. At about 2.00 PM that day, I also started for the station from my office, amid pouring water, in the hope that I might just be able to catch a train to reach home. However, the trains had stopped running much prior to that. Consequently, I had to return to my office and spend the night there. I reached back home the next morning and took the day off from work. The day was, incidentally, mostly sunny and bright. However, the day after that when I reached the train station to catch a train to my office, I observed that the trains were still being cancelled and the ones that were running were delayed. At the time, certain questions troubled my mind, which I am reproducing below:

1.       Why is it that almost 30-36 hours of no rains and hence, availability of ample recovery time, the trains services had still not normalized?

2.       Why is it that there was a complete absence of timely warnings about the impending heavy rains prior to Tuesday (the day of heavy rains), so that people could have been warned well in advance, and could have stayed at home?

3.       Why is it that all the advisories started pouring in only post noon on Tuesday, when the maximum damage had already been done, and the trains had already stopped functioning? How could the people stranded at workplaces be expected to reach back in such a scenario and of what use were these advisories then?

4.       Why is it that there were predictions of continuous heavy rains for 24-48 hours after Tuesday, and then there was no, or little rain recorded? Who is accountable for this absolutely off the mark forecast?

5.       Why is it that the authorities are as helpless in handling the rainfalls in Mumbai, as they were in 2005? Why is it that the financial capital of the nation came to a standstill with only one-third the amount of rainfall that had fallen in 2005, and that too 12 years later? Who is accountable for these lost 12 years of no preparation to handle such a situation?

6.       Why is it that the people of Mumbai had only each-other for their help and support, somehow trying to grapple with the crisis? Who is accountable for the non-existent disaster management system in a city which experiences 4-month long monsoons every year?

One year down the line, I still don’t have any answers to the above questions. However, ironically, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been magnanimous enough in announcing this year that in case people are stranded at their workplaces or such other places due to heavy rains, they will be provided with food and water by the Corporation. I leave it to you to decide if Mumbaikars must be grateful for this grand offer.