CHENNAI: This may sound cynical or even a shade perverse, but the deluges, landslides and cyclonic storms that are increasingly visited upon us by the vagaries of climate change, while presenting incumbent governments with a humungous challenge, also offer them the singular opportunity to prove themselves afresh and renew and galvanise the confidence of the people in them.
There is, so to speak, a fair-weather-friend opportunity in foul weather, with the potential for handsome electoral dividends. A flood or cyclone, combatted vigorously and efficiently, could actually end up sweeping away the lapses, inefficiencies or vulnerabilities of a government on other fronts and become the supervening gamechanger, come election time. On the flipside, such efficient and dramatic calamity management can distract attention from, and detract from the legitimate appreciation of the systematic and sustained good work being done by a government towards a transformative change in the lives of the people.
What distinguishes the current Tami Nadu government’s exertion in this crucial area is that it proceeds in deliberate steps and calibrated policy terms beyond, or in addition to, the ad hoc measures to meet the sudden fury of cyclonic weather.
Already the stormwater drainage scheme was being given a push and kept constantly in public focus by Chief Minister MK Stalin himself and did seem to serve Chennai well during the heavy downpour in mid October and stand up in good, even if not in full, measure to that downpour, particularly a single day of intense precipitation.
The response of the Corporation to distress calls from flood afflicted areas seemed by and large quick and efficient. Heavy duty pumps, apparently installed at 113 locations in the city, managed to keep many streets, which were under water for long the last time round, flood free. The renewed drainage system was spared a tougher test, and possibly further embarrassment, because on the forecast big red-alert day, the depression shifted course and headed for the Andhra coast.
But what is heartening is the sustained sense of preparedness in the short run and the longer term initiatives towards what the chief minister has characterised as a final solution to the recurrent flooding in the Chennai Metropolitan area and possibly other cities and towns in the state similarly prone to flooding. Political rhetoric is matched by administrative action, including a
GIS mapping scheme to cover all flood prone areas in Chennai for the first time, and to be extended to an area of nearly 1,200 square kilometres in the transition from the CMDA’s second to third Master Plan. Public interest and peoples’ participation feeding into this Operation Fight Flooding give it a semblance of a wider movement with a strong momentum. The government had to cry halt, when the volunteers enlisting to supplement official efforts in Chennai last month, crossed 15,000 mark. The stormwater drain project has, over the decades, become a bi-partisan agenda, although previously it has also been mired in corruption charges. But that is another story.
(Sashi Kumar is a print and broadcast journalist, filmmaker and media entrepreneur. He founded and chairs Media Development Foundation which administers Asian College of Journalism)