Will This Monsoon Spell Disaster Once Again?

Less than a year back on July 3^rd 2006, the incessant ran on this day made Mumbai once again succumb to the monsoon threat. The intensity of water logging was so strong that train services came to a halt causing much discomfort to Lakhs of commuters, eighty flights were cancelled, 200 families were evacuated from Kranti-Nagar and Jari-Mari, 9 long-distance trains were cancelled and above all it claimed 28 precious human lives!

It seemed that BMC and MMRDA in general and our honorable Chief Minister in particular had not learned the lesson from 26^th July 2005 floods which threatened to engulf this city of Mumbai. As many of you may remember on 26^th July 2005, Mumbaites witnessed a deluge that they had never seen before - 994 mm of rainfall was recorded on this single day and which seemed to be a trailer of the D-Day that’s predicted in our holy-books.

On the aftermath of this disastrous rainfall which took the toll of many human lives and loss of crores of rupees, our ministry assured the they would take immediate action to re-dress this kind of water logging in monsoon. But in less than a years’ time of this assurance, the shoddy work of BMC and MMRDA lay miserably exposed.

The shocking fact was that the rainfall on the of 3^rd July-06 was a mere 233 mm in North Mumbai and 180 mm in South Mumbai, much lesser then the record rainfall of 994 mm on July 26^th. The Chitale Committee formed by our government to study and investigate the reasons for 26^th July surge and find appropriate solutions to plug all the loop holes by taking immediate corrective measures to thwart this kind of disaster; relied blindly and without cross-checking on the report submitted by BMC and MMRDA which boisterously claimed that 85 to 90% work to prevent such catastrophes has been completed.

To top this all apna State Government assured the Mumbai High Court that the total work to make Mumbai safer and free from such calamities or water logging would be completed by January 5^th 2006. But the water logging on 3^rd of July-06 which literally threatened to repeat the past performance, gave a lie to the above claim of the State Government.

Now the question remains, will the kind of deluge that seemed to swallow Mumbai repeat itself this monsoon?

To find the answer to this fateful question we have to take into consideration the fact that the work of cleaning the debris from Mithi River is yet to be completed even now when the monsoon is lurking just around the corner. The phase I of the project started in March-06 was scheduled to be completed in May-06 at the cost of Rs. 30 crores but instead it was completed in June-06.

As for the Phase II which should have been initiated immediately after phase I completed, was started in Nov-06 delaying the completion by full 5 months. So what do we end up paying for this unnecessary delay – Phase II will now be completed by June 2010. And what are we Mumbaites expected to do when the monsoon lashes out incessant rainfall this year; basically nothing, but merely pray to our respective Gods and if you happen to be an Atheist….. (I have no freaking clue).

• Culture, Government, India, Mumbai, News, Pissed off !
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