EVERY MONSOON, just an hour of heavy rain is enough to expose the true state of our so-called real estate. These urban centres, which make up more than 60% of India’s GDP, come to a standstill during the rainy months of July and August. Roads disappear under muddy, rushing water, cars float like toy boats and children wade through flooded streets to reach school—just as in earlier times when people crossed rivers to attend classes.
The allure of a “better life” in a multi-crore apartment in Gurugram begins to fade as water seeps inside these apartments. Suddenly, the urban skyline doesn’t look like progress, rather it looks like a planning failure. This starts the ultimate blame game where fingers are pointed at corrupt politicians, apathetic bureaucrats, and unscrupulous contractors.
But amidst all this blame, how often do we, as citizens, hold up a mirror to ourselves?
Beyond Climate Change: A Planning Crisis
The climate change is real. It is making downpours severe and more erratic. India is to witness 43% surge in extreme rainfall intensity by 2030, as per recent study.
However, climate change alone is not responsible for cities drowning after an hour of rain. The real problem is decades of failed urban planning and disregard for sustainable governance.
The drains remain undersized and clogged with plastic and debris. Wetlands that once absorbed rainwater have now been paved over for malls, highways, and housing colonies. Forget the much-hyped “smart cities” even the nation’s capital has failed to deliver resilient drainage systems.
Shifting Blame, Avoiding Responsibility
It is convenient to pinpoint this failure solely on the government. Ask anyone why drains are choked, the reply mostly remains common “The municipality doesn’t do its job properly,” or “Contractors only care about making money.” But when asked further about citizens’ role in keeping the city clean, the usual response is, “It’s not my job to clean the drains, I do my duty of paying taxes.”
True, taxes fund the system. But no system can work if people treat drains as dumping grounds for garbage, channel their sewage into them, and then wash their hands of all responsibility.
We’re eager to cultivate kitchen gardens in our balconies, but do we protest when green belts are cleared for new malls? That’s not just the job of NGOs and activists.
Of course, we can’t leave our jobs to sweep roads or unclog drains. But with the belief that paying taxes is where our civic duty ends, we are only fuelling the crisis of civic neglect.
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There was a time when communities embraced collective responsibility. Nearly 4,000 years ago, in the ancient city of Harappa, people didn’t wait for someone else to act. They cleaned their own drains, stored water with care, and planned for their urban way of life as a community.
Their sophisticated drainage network and rainwater harvesting systems were not just feats of engineering but evidence of a civic culture that understood shared responsibility.
Urban flooding is a human-made disaster. It’s not just the failure of governance, but of civic maturity.
If we want our cities to stay above water, we will all have to get our hands dirty, both literally and figuratively.
(The author is Editor, TheRise.co.in, and graduate of The Print School of Journalism. The author can be reached at <sneha20j@gmail.com>)
(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ukhrul Times. Ukhrul Times values and encourages diverse perspectives.)