Mumbai’s infra can’t handle change in rainfall pattern, climate change : BMC chief

Since the 2005 deluge, Pardeshi said, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has spent thousands of crores on monsoon preparedness, but expectations keep rising.

Heavy rain for the past few days brought the city to a virtual halt, with waterlogged roads, traffic jams and halted local trains. Municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi, in an interview with Hindustan Times, explained the reason behind this – “The city’s infrastructure is not capable of handling climate change and change in rainfall pattern.”

Civic chief Praveen Pardeshi said Mumbai’s infrastructure is not capable of handling climate change and change in rainfall pattern. (HT File)

Since the 2005 deluge, Pardeshi said, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has spent thousands of crores on monsoon preparedness, but expectations keep rising.

Edited excerpts:

Waterlogging stayed for a much shorter period. Our efforts worked. Water did not stay on the streets. Can you imagine what could have been the situation if the pumping stations and stormwater drains did not work? Water does not stay in low-lying areas because it is being pumped out. Of course, we need to do much more, and that is the expectation. I agree that we cannot keep increasing the capacity of drains alone.

The earlier pattern of 90 to 100 rainy days in the monsoon has now come down to 25 to 30 days of heavy rain, but the amount of rainfall has not decreased. This is very bad because our infrastructure does not cater to such rapid run-off in such a small time. In Mumbai, it is easy to talk about water conservation, but where to put that water? So we have to think of innovative methods such as protecting mangroves through which our percolation rate will go up. The BMC has decided to stop concretisation of river beds. In Mithi, too, we will use gabion structures instead of concrete, which will have rocks and steel wire mesh. We are converting rivers into drains and so we need to revive the rivers, especially Mithi.

I believe our infrastructure is not designed to take any climate change that way and we have to work on it now.

For all new proposals coming for permission, we are denying concessions if they are on paved areas. We are making a circular now, and saying that open spaces and recreation grounds which are legitimately green, should not be paved. It is a small thing, but is doable.

We have not opened up any saltpan land for development. We are refraining from development there. Right now, there is no fixed thought on that. I think we need a saltpan land for a pumping station in Mahul. So those sort of activities only will be permitted. The rest of it can remain as a natural green area, which will be much better in the light of the way Mumbai is developing.

Of the 53 nullahs to be upgraded, 25 nullahs were upgraded to 50mm and 12 are in progress, and four are yet to be opened. Some of them came up because the problems in the original spots were not addressed or were partially addressed, so there is a ballooning effect. The most important thing we are missing out on is thinking what can be the maximum carrying capacity of Mumbai, both infrastructure and population-wise. Most cities work on that.
Public transport is a very good disperser of population. Not creating affordable houses in the city’s centre and increasing parking charges as a proxy to congestion tax will ensure the city is not overloaded.