Let’s Give Sustainable Growth A Chance!

With the increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, due to climate change, heavy downpours that cause flooding in a short period of time have become a regular feature. What does that do to the citizens in big cities; life gets totally disrupted, the entire city comes to a standstill, and people can’t get to their place of work or schools, colleges, banks etc. Even critical patients can’t reach hospitals. Buses and cars are stranded on the road; local trains can’t operate. At times such a situation can last for as long as two days – Gurgaon’s infamous Gurujam of 29 July 2016 had held the city to ransom for 20 hours and on August 29 and 30, 2017 Mumbai was locked down for two days – causing huge damage to the roads, houses and other buildings, millions worth of household goods and commercial stocks; there was huge economic loss and even lives were lost. There have been similar mishaps in Chennai, Bengaluru, Srinagar and other places.

Why does this happen?

The answers are simple. Most urban topographies have ‘natural drainage channels’ and creeks. However heavy the downpour, some water percolates down and in due course, reaches the underground aquifers. Rest flows into the drainage channels or creeks and reaches the natural water bodies. Part of it, falling on roads and concrete floors, goes into storm drains that discharge into rivers and eventually the oceans. The hectic pace of construction in big cities endeavours to cover every square foot of land and parts of the creeks and channels also get covered under valuable real estate. Construction debris are dumped in the creeks with impunity and the network is disconnected at places. So, when there is heavy rainfall, water accumulates on the roads because it has no exit, except roadside municipal drains, which are too small.

At one time the Bombay Municipal Corporation was toasted by the rest of the country as the most efficient civic body. The city faced heavy rains almost daily during the monsoons but water would just flow into drains and there would be no interruption to life and work in the metropolis. The drainage system was systematically declogged before the onset of the monsoons; buses and local trains ran on schedule, electricity breakdowns were unheard of and the city was well managed by dedicated professionals. With the passage of time, population increase led to pressure on land and influential builders started grabbing every available plot for constructing skyscrapers all over. The inevitable happened. Civic infrastructure started crumbling. Whereas huge diesel gensets took care of the power cut woes, there was no escape from flooding.

Up north, Gurgaon – dubbed as the futuristic ‘millennium city’ – faced worse problems. Perhaps the fastest growing city in the country, civic authorities here were just not able to get a grip on the services. The Gurujam – infamous sobriquet earned by the city on 29 July 2016 – was perhaps the last straw. There were cases of people stuck in their cars for as long as 16 hours on Sohna Road and if it was not for the help of residents nearby – for water, food and even carrying the elderly to their homes for using washrooms – suffering would’ve been much greater. On the flipside, vocal angry criticism by the people and adverse publicity woke up the authorities and triggered high level discussions to find a solution. Committees were appointed and it was decided to construct a drain from MG Road to Vatika Chowk with an estimated budget of Rs 100 crores. However, as is common in public projects, not much happened beyond patchwork cleaning of clogged drains etc. Since nothing of this magnitude occurred again for the next three years, everything moved to the back burner.

Another deluge occurred on 20 August 2020. Between 19 August and 20 August nearly 200 mm of rain fell – including 50 mm on the 20thin a short span of two to three hours – resulting in deep flooding all over the city – especially in the underpasses on the newly constructed Golf Course Road, a showpiece of the country’s biggest developer, which connects their iconic golf and residential complex with the Gurgaon-Delhi expressway. High capacity pumps, arranged on a war footing, pumped out water @ 50-60 MLD (million litres per day) to bring about a semblance of normalcy. Even the parking lots inside the complex were flooded in deep water, damaging many luxury cars. This really shook the administration and the visionary CEO of the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) decided to find a permanent solution.

He went on to say that “The city has been developed without proper planning over the years. We have to make a choice – we can either make sustainable changes now and save the city or continue to face similar situations in future”. Thankfully, the NGO ‘I AM GURGAON’ (IAG) was asked to step in. The NGO – founded by a brilliant young architect and a young, hyper active lady, who is a former banker, had already proven its mettle by converting a mining ravaged, derelict 380-acres area into the famous ‘Biodiversity Park’. They decided to carry out a scientific survey and commissioned TERI; whose experts – including PhD scholars, who specialise and work on urban water bodies – carried out a detailed hydrogeological study over three months and made excellent sustainable suggestions – called the Blue-Green Intervention – to avoid a repeat.

Suggestions were indeed simple. Besides the crucial point of ‘new buildings not including areas of the creek network, bunds, hilly areas and forest land’ which are all part of the ‘recharge zone’, executive summary of the November 2020 report starts with the observation “the four creeks are existing rain water channels and their revival is the most important step to avoid flooding in the city and recharging the groundwater table”. It mentions, in simple words, that we should do the following:

(a) connect the missing (encroached) portions of the creeks network withkucchachannels that allow percolation down

(b) make catchment basins if the old water bodies cannot be rejuvenated

(c) Roads connecting the higher elevation Gurgaon-Faridabad highway and Golf Course Road – that also act as drainage channels during heavy rains – should have gentle breakers and discharge pipes so that gushing waters are diverted to the green belts, creeks and ponds

(d) all building complexes along the road and neighbouring areas to have 100 per cent ‘rainwater harvesting’ and enhanced water holding capacity

(e) sewage not to be allowed into storm water drains – it has to go into municipal sewers

(f) ensure creation of recharge wells, with infiltration galleries, along the bunds (green corridors) that acts as water repositories and

(g) ensure creation of wetlands.

The GMDA decided to reactivate their ‘flood control room’ earlier than usual and issued instructions that the creeks – once fully connected – must remain unclogged at all times. To their credit, the 2021 and 2022 monsoons did not present any serious issues. Here’s hoping that the system will hold even if 2023 sees a repeat of the extraordinary 2020 like downpour!

I AM GURGAON continues to work on revival of major water bodies of Gurgaon – lost to the greed of builders, their unholy nexus with some unethical municipal officials and the resultant construction of skyscrapers everywhere. They have already done great work in reviving huge tracts along the Wazirabad drain and the most prestigious Sikanderpur Lake was inaugurated on 7 April 2023 by the CM. This 90-acre lake and watershed area was a cesspool of sewage and trash from the village less than four years ago when they were asked by the authorities to work on it.

It took them nine months to just clean the area, including taking out 200 trucks of plastic waste. It was a classic case of successful public-private partnership with MCG fully supporting the efforts, removing encroachments, fencing the area and helping IAG in all facets including suggestions to raise corporate funds, planting trees and beautifying the place. The NGO, IAG continues to work on other projects at Badshahpur and Ghataetc. and hopefully, the happy partnership will continue.

I can’t end this article without mentioning the Union Environment Minister’s frightening statement in the Rajya Sabha, on 6 April. “During the last five years, approximately 90,000 hectares of forest land has been used for other development projects including roads (20K) mining (19) irrigation (13) transmission lines (10) and defence (8). Eternal conflict between ‘development and sustainability’;” he said, concluding that the “only way we can make up is by creating new forests, water bodies and green areas.”