Published in Dwarka Express on 10.9.22

When it is raining cats and dogs, it appears that the Social media has time for fun. At least this is what one feels, that too when the whole Bangalore city is floating literally. Bangalore “IT Guys are victims of their own deeds, who asked to put everything on clouds!” reads a e-card which has gone viral. Another card reads, “Bangalore must be the only tech Hub in the world where software developers travel two hours to get to their office so that they can build Apps to deliver groceries in 10 minutes!”. Jokes apart, it is true that the city confronted unprecedented rains in the last few days, with the resultant break down of all government machineries. No one could do anything except playing the blame game effectively. Always, it so happens that the opinions of environmentalists and scientists are ignored as over-reactive or not pragmatic.

Once known as the lake city, the IT Hub is now left with a few lakes which are also in brink of vanishing point. It is due to some relentless citizen activists that the left over lakes are having some breathe still in them. And lots of residential complex have come up in the last few decades to replace the lakes. We built the residential complexes on lakes and now we want that drinking water should be available in these complexes. You can’t have the cake and eat it too! In fact, in May 2022, there was a warning of heavy rains by September. The meteorological department predicted heavy rains in September. But no one heeded to these early warning signals. The IT Hub is floating, Whitefield is now ‘bluefield’ and outer ring road has submerged below the flooded water. Bangalore is inundated with waterlogging everywhere.

The lakes, Rajakaluves (water canals), ponds, rivers, marshes, grasslands and floodplains must be immediately restored on war footing and encroachments must be stopped forthwith. It is reliably understood that the Govt has released 1500 Crore for construction of drains. If Bangalore has to be saved from disaster, the Government must take steps to immediately fix the accountability on the corrupt officials on the one hand and listen to high power advisors from environment and technical background to rebuild the city’s ecosystem. All projects in violation of the RMP 2015 must be stopped immediately or else the once known paradise city will slowly get converted into a hell