Once again Mumbai is on the same track as it was in the last week of July 2005...if i remember correctly. I was going thru the newspaper n came to know that around hundreds of people died till date....
I still remember that horrible night when me n my friend Hanuman went to Mumbai for the first time. We were in Ghatkopar n it started rain heavily... we waited for few hours but 'Indra' devta was in no mood to stop. There was nothing like public transport or taxi as the water started flowing like river on the roads. At around 10:00 pm we decided to walk to our guest house which was around 13-14 Kms(Thane) from this place. Somehow we reached the express highway wat we saw there was unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!! there were thousands of people walking over there..as the traffic was standstill till next morning. We walked till Thane in almost 2-3 hrs.
Next 3-4 days we were house-arrest in our guest house without electricity . It was in the last week of july 2005...........Same situation is repeating again this year....
I wonder what the guv is doing to tackle this situation. BMC is not at all prepared to tackle the situation. And our CM Deshmukh sahab is abroad for business purposes. I doubt they realise the condition of poor people who have lost their homes ...................starving?????????????????
Be it any government but the condition of Mumbai will remain the same. Its the "live and let live spirit" of the citizens here which drives the Mumbai thru floods and bomb explosions. Although Mumbai had its share of religious acrimonies but still its during difficult situations people show that they are the same and only core Mumbaikar at heart. Its that live spirit of Mumbai that drives us.
The 'Spirit of Mumbai'??? Is that all we can come up with as a possible fall back plan???
Anyways moving on.....the question again this time too is: Did we really learn anything from all that happened an year ago or even 2005?
Mumbai, as usual gets flooded again by just the start of the fresh onset of monsoons!
....also what is frustrating is that apparently huge sums of money get poured into the rehabilitation every year especially after that disaster of 2005......TO SHOW WHAT???
Can we never learn from mistakes, and/or have the decency to direct the money towards the right channels?
Here is some important (additional) food for thought:
Disaster a result of Bad Urban Planning in Mumbai Mangroves cleared
The systematic destruction of about 1,000 acres of the city's mangrove cover - (what's left, about 5,000 acres, is under threat) - has deprived Mumbai of its natural flood-barrier and silt trap. Horror stories abound of urban welfare projects gone terribly awry.
A World Bank-funded urban transport project has cut away hillsides, dumping debris on the city's wetlands.
Mangroves have been cleared to build golf courses, amusement parks and rubbish dumps. Drains choked
It's not just the "no-development zones" that have fallen prey to the frenzy of unplanned building.
Successive state governments have signed off lands reserved for parks on the pretext of housing the poor.
In fact, the replacement of low-lying slums with multi-storey buildings has made the city a concrete jungle.
Typically, 35-40% of rainwater is absorbed by the land, lifting groundwater levels, but there are few open spaces left in Mumbai.
India has the lowest ratio of open space to people in the world - a mere four acres per 1,000 of population, compared to the global benchmark of 12 acres.
Note: In Mumbai, this falls to a paltry 0.2 acres, and after accounting for slums, it diminishes to a measly 0.03 acres.
Add to that the unholy nexus between politicians and builders and all that unfettered development; and you don't have to wonder what has brought the city to the brink of collapse.........
Frankly the experts have already deduced that Mumbai's development plan is obsolete in the face of such unfettered urban growth.
Thousands of tonnes of uncleared rubbish choke the city's 100-year-old storm water drains, which urgently need an overhaul.
And in a city where 88% of commuters use public transport, governments spend a lot on flyovers and a pittance on upgrading creaky trains and buses.
'Urban collapse' Environmentalists say the only city in the world with a quarter of its land area designated as a national park is on a suicide mission.
The experts are now calling Mumbai "a case study for the collapse of urbania in India".
And in the end: Can it get any bleaker? Well people, most of the environmentalists think so, yes!... If Mumbai's unprecedented rainfalls are an early warning of global warming and rising sea levels, the city will "become an island again, be it with rain water or sea water".
