Two nights of rain have unleashed a storm of criticism about corrupt, apathetic civic authorities. Valleys leading to Bellandur and Varthur lake are submerged in toxic foam and an illegal construction in Ejipura tilted, causing the neighbours much distress before the BBMP began demolition work. Members of United Bengaluru who visited Koramangala, one of the worst-hit areas put it down to blatant negligence by authorities. Why have they failed to respond to the problem, ask Chandrashekar G. and Rohan Ramesh
Fire fighting personnel, who were everywhere, attending to people stranded in the torrential rain of Monday night in the city, emerged the heroes as they rescued about 15 persons from marooned buildings and restored electricity by flushing out water from their basements.
Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, Mr K. U. Ramesh, Chief Fire Officer, said as many as 30 vehicles were deputed to 64 different locations over the last two days to attend to rain related distress calls. Besides, four dinghy boats were used in Koramangala to rescue people stuck in the Green Line apartment and other residential complexes.
“Public calls are important to us. We don’t wait for any other civic agency to inform us about the emergencies. Not a single public call is ignored. But rescue may be delayed as the vehicles and personnel are attending to people at many locations at such times,” he explained.
On Tuesday, vehicles were deputed at 48 locations and on Wednesday, at 16 , according to him. “Over 165 personnel have worked relentlessly in the last 48 hours,” he said.
It took a whopping 20 hours for fire force personnel to flush out water from the BMTC complex, which also houses the Income Tax office. Around seven fire tenders were employed to pump out the water in addition to three trailer pumps and two big pumps. Over 30 firemen worked overnight Tuesday to get the job done, said a fire force officer.
The work of the firemen, who were out with their dinghies and fire tenders, rescuing and ferrying people to safer places has not gone unnoticed by Bengalureans used to apathy from civic agencies.
Take Mr N. A. Choudary of Koramangala, who gratefully recalls that the state disaster management force under the fire and emergency services responded to his SoS with a rubber boat to carry people to safer ground Tuesday morning.
Corrupt officials, greedy citizens encroaching lakes, SWDs to blame
Bengaluru’s slide from being a Garden City to a slushy mess is evident with every spell of heavy rain. But who should be held responsible for the city’s descent into chaos in a downpour? Should the first citizen of Bengaluru, its Mayor be held responsible, or its MLAs, MPs and Ministers ? Or are greedy citizens, who encroach on stormwater drains, shoulder drains, footpaths and government land to blame?
Mr D S Rajashekar, president of the Citizens' Action Forum lays the blame at all their doors, including greedy citizens responsible for encroachments that are not allowing the city’s storm water drains to play the role they were intended for and save the city from flooding in rain.
"MPs may not be directly involved in the city's development like the MLAs, Ministers and Mayor are, but they are part of the Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.The 88-member panel, which has Ministers, MLAs, MLCs, officials, zilla panchayat members, corporators and parliamentarians on board, has held only one meeting in June 2016 since it was formed in January 2014,” he recalls, lamenting that if the MPC, the nodal authority for all development and planning, does not meet regularly, it defeats the very purpose of creating such a body.
“This mess could have been averted if the MPC met regularly and discussed problems concerning Bengaluru and found the right solutions,” he reasons.
Mr Srinivas Alavilli, coordinator of Citizens for Bengaluru, observes that when corruption sets in the entire system collapses. “People tend to feel that if someone else has encroached on government property why shouldn’t they too follow suit. Flooding of Bengaluru is a wake- up call and the government should at least do something now. If the city was not looked at like a real-estate cash cow, we would not have seen such a mess in rain,” he contends.
Bellandur and Varthur, valleys of toxic froth
The infamous Bellandur and Varthus lakes are back in the news again with heavy rains lashing city incessantly. As the inflow to the lakes multiplied, all valleys heading to the lakes has become snow valley spilling froth to the roads next to it.
“Adding to the already existing stink, the heavy flow of rainwater has increased the stink around the area. When wind blows heavily foam is blown and lands on people and vehicles crossing the valley” said Mr Mokshit, a techie residing near the lake.
Mayor announces compensation
Mayor G. Padmavathi assured on Wednesday that a compensation package would be announced based on the damage suffered by people of the city in the recent flooding.
Revealing that around 50 houses had been severely damaged and lost all their food in rain, she said a compensation of Rs. 5,000 would be given to each member of these affected families. The Mayor requested people to submit their application for compensation with details about the loss suffered supported by photographs. “BBMP revenue officials will assess the damage and announce a suitable compensation,” she assured.
Affected by rains? citizens happy to lend a hand
With rainfall causing havoc in the city, some concerned Bengalureans have begun collecting clothes, toiletries, disinfectants, food packets and other necessities for distribution among those worst affected by the deluge. “When our domestic help’s home partly collapsed thanks to the rain, she came home and asked me for a spare change of clothes. This got me thinking about more like her and I shared the idea with a few friends, who volunteered to help. Social media helped us connect the missing dots, but we want more people to come forward,” said Mayukh, who is a part of the donation drive.
HUG, a city based non- profit organisation, too has started a campaign called Gift a Meal that allows anyone to gift a meal to the needy in the L.R. Nagar slum opposite NGV in Koramangala. Share a Smile, another non- profit organisation, is contributing by giving away clothes and medicines. “We need to come forward and help as it is quite useless to sit and complain about the state of affairs. No one is being held responsible and by the time that happens and the government figures it out, it will be too late. Instead, if we as people get together, we can accomplish anything . Helping each other is just a small part of it,” said Ms Smrithi Mannar, another volunteer.
Bengaluru is in for more wet weather, according to director of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Management Centre (KSNDMC) , Srinivas Reddy. "The monsoon is currently active over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal and it is due to a cyclonic trough passing over Karnataka from Tamil Nadu that Bengaluru is getting some heavy rain presently. And this is likely to continue for another few days,” he says. Going by the the KSNMDC there are WhatsApp groups where BBMP, BWSSB and BESCOM officials are expected to send alerts if an area records over 12.5 mm rain in an hour.
Criminal negligence by civic authorities: Mahalakshmi Parthasarathy, Secretary, Citizens’ Action Forum
Many Bengalurueans did not get a wink of sleep on the night of August 14 as they desperately tried to salvage some of their furniture and electronic equipment. And no one from the BBMP responded to their umpteen calls to inform it that their homes and locality were flooded by the heavy rain.
Worse, the BBMP was sitting on sitting on a detailed study by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNMDC) that mentioned the low lying areas prone to flooding. The least it could have done is make this information public and take ward committees and local corporators into confidence to prepare for the eventuality. But it did nothing and I have not met one Bengalurean, who is aware of this study.
But this is not the end of such criminal negligence by the civic agency as the Indian Meteorological Department had also warned it of impending heavy rain and possible flash floods. The BBMP officials chose to ignore its forecast and did not think it necessary to issue warnings to unsuspecting citizens as they were possibly in the long weekend holiday mood.
We have this scenario being repeated every year and the situation is only going from bad to worse owing to the sorry state of the city's drainage and sewerage system. And when any questions are asked the administration talks about how it is "crippled by political interference". In the process we have people’s lives falling into disarray. Who will bear the expense of rebuilding them? Can the money and resources required be recovered from BBMP officials? If not, then should we spend the taxpayers’ money on a defunct administrative body?
