Everytime the skies open up, citizens of
Madras look up and thank the heavens. A place where water is such a precious
resource would obviously do that. Further, Madras is not known to be much of a
'rainy place' when compared to the likes of say, Bombay, where copious rains
are a given. Hence, it comes as a shock that the citizens are actually singing 'rain rain go away' and praying 'please also don't come again another day'
too!
The past month has been one of the wettest
in Madras' history and it just missed the record for the highest in 100 years
by a whisker. Ah, now that we have undergone the suffering, shouldn't we, at
the least, be a part of history!
Everything has gone haywire for office goers
to home makers to school children to the daily wage earner. How long can one
sit at home, doing nothing but watching the weather update?
There are no two hoots on the fact that no
place can be prepared for a once in a blue moon phenomenon. When it rains so
much, roads are bound to get flooded as the rain water needs to take time to
finds its way into the drains. However, could one have minimised the damage?
The serious part of the issue remains as to
how prepared we are and how can this be prevented in future. Sadly, the situation
we have got into, I don't think we are going to get any better in future with
interference in everything from desilting canals to relaying roads to rainwater
harvesting. A honest officer wanting to concretise the roads is transferred.
Contractors who can lay roads that would come apart by the time the black on
the tar faded out are given contracts so that they can lay the same roads again
and again. Permissions are granted to build apartments and complexes on low
lying areas that were once water bodies. Yes, if all these were avoided, the
damage indeed would have been less.
When there is deficiency in rain, then we take
another road altogether. I wouldn't be surprised if we face a shortfall in
water supply in May-June 2016, simply because all this water will get dumped in
the sea. Then questions will arise as to what we did with all the water that
fell on Madras during the monsoon.
Sigh!
P.S.: One
request to the participants at the Madras music festival in December - please
avoid the Amritavarshini and Malhar ragas!
2 comments:
I do not think either the Government nor the people have learn't something out of these rains. There's going to be more encroachment on the roads and on the lakes by the people and as usual Government is again going to be blind towards such illegal encroachment after a month or so. Yesterday after hearing from my son that some of the encroachments were removed on the banks of Rajakilpakkam lake, I personally visited the place to see how effective it was. I spoke to the local people who had also come to see the situation standing on the high raised bunds to see how it looked inside the lake. I could see very little water when compared to the flow I witnessed when it was released by the authorities during the rains. Definitely We can foresee water shortage during the coming summer. I also understand about 10000 families had settled in and around the lake and the Government would eventually evacuate them. Will this really happen ?
Well what we have seen is that once encroached, the place receives everything from a patta to electricity to water connections! So that, according to me would be unlikely
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