Out-of-box ideas needed to deal with Mumbai rains

Waterlogging is a problem with most big Indian cities. But nowhere is it such a routine and menacing one as in Mumbai where flooding, loss of lives and property and dislocation of services and public life causes incalculable harm.

Of all the major cities of the country, nature is the most generous with the commercial capital in terms of rainfall and policymakers have to settle for a long-term plan for minimising hardships during the monsoons. There is already a tussle between the infrastructure and development lobby on the one hand and the environmental group on the other. While the former is for mega projects such as the metro rail and coastal road that are allegedly blocking the passage of rainwater, thereby accentuating the monsoon trouble, the green lobby thinks these projects are only intensifying a traditional trouble area for the city.

Urbanisation cannot put a full stop to infrastructure building. Neither can modern men keep up with the problems that Mumbai faces every monsoon. Expert agencies need to be mandated to form a long-term blueprint for transformative strategies to minimise the city’s trouble with excess rains.

The best of agencies needs to be mandated for drawing up strategies. Most important, politicians and politicking need to stay out of any strategy that such agencies might suggest. It cannot be a problem that defies our ability to find a solution. It might be very long-term, it might be expensive, it might involve sacrifices from a section of the society, but there must be some solution to the problem that seems to have become a blot on this irrepressible city.

All over the world, rains symbolise life. It would not only be unfortunate but also turn into a sad commentary on the ability of the nation’s problem-solving skills if the monsoon comes to imply only dislocation, paralysis, and loss of lives and property in India’s most vibrant city.