While the country is focusing much attention on growth and investment, one vital area that is not getting its due is the plethora of civic problems that are playing havoc with our prime cities. Be it Chennai’s devastating floods, Delhi’s alarming air quality, Bangalore’s foaming lakes, Kolkata’s shocking roads or Mumbai’s perennial water logging during monsoon, there are huge challenges for both the Centre and states. We are bequeathing a frightening legacy to future generations unless we learn from our mistakes and take remedial action.
The municipal corporations, on which civic infrastructure is dependent, have stupendous budgets in the metros, but are steeped in corruption and maladministration. Civic amenities are a picture of neglect and apathy.
Chennai has never seen such horrendous floods as now. Vested interests have invariably been at play in controversial decisions taken by successive governments in Tamil Nadu. An airport built on the floodplains of the Adyar, a bus terminal in flood-prone Koyambedu, a Mass Rapid Transit System built almost entirely over the Buckingham Canal and the Pallikaranai marshlands are a few examples of ill-planned construction which is facing the onslaught of floods.
More recently, an IT corridor and a knowledge corridor comprising engineering colleges were built on water bodies, and automobile and telecom SEZs and gated residential areas built on vital drainage courses and catchments.
The air quality in Delhi, according to a WHO survey of 1,600 cities, is the worst of any major city in the world. Poor air has irreversibly damaged the lungs of 2.2 million or 50 per cent of all children in the capital. During December 2014-January 2015, an average dust particulate matter (PM) 2.5 level of 226, considered very unhealthy, was noted by US embassy monitors in Delhi. The average in Beijing, which had the second highest level for the same period, was 95. While China is attacking the problem on a war footing, India is smug about it. Poor air quality is a cause of reduced lung capacity, headaches, sore throats, coughs and fatigue, and even early death.
Bangalore was in the news recently when the famed Varthur Lake was so severely affected by water pollution that it was frothing profusely and the foamy water was spilling into the roads.
The foam is because of the Varthur water containing high amounts of ammonia and phosphate with very little dissolved oxygen. Once called the Garden City, Bangalore is today a city denuded of much of its forest cover. The sad part is that in each of these once-prized cities, there is no concerted effort to improve the conditions. The municipal corporation of Mumbai, India’s richest civic body that boasts an annual budget of over `20,000 crore, is grappling with problems of water logging and potholed roads during monsoons. Poor sanitation is an issue of deep concern and clean water supply is woefully scarce. Kolkata, too, is plagued by a host of civic problems such as bad roads and pollution.
Civic woes must get the attention they deserve. Corruption in civic works must attract punitive and swift action. The expenditures of civic bodies must be strictly scrutinised. The town planning authorities must work with greater rigour. But before everything, the seriousness of civic woes must seep in both at the level of the Narendra Modi government and the states.
k.kamlendra@gmail.com
Kanwar is a former journalist