Account for the huge flooding of million cities in India including the smart ones like Hyderabad and Pune.…

Question

Account for the huge flooding of million cities in India including the smart ones like Hyderabad and Pune. Suggest lasting remedial measures.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Million-plus Indian cities, including smart ones like Hyderabad and Pune, flood because intense rain meets encroached lakes and streams, concrete sprawl, outdated choked drains and fragmented governance; lasting remedies restore water bodies, adopt sponge-city design and modernise drainage. Hyderabad's built-up cover rose 41% between 2000 and 2015.

**Introduction**

India's 53 million-plus cities (Census 2011) now flood routinely: Mumbai (2005), Chennai (2015), Pune (2019) and Hyderabad (2020). NDMA notes that urbanisation can raise flood peaks 1.8 to 8 times (2010).

**Why Million Cities Flood**

SKETCH: flow | How Rain Becomes an Urban Flood
- Intense short burst
- Concrete blocks infiltration
- Runoff peak multiplies
- Choked, narrowed drains
- Lost lakes, no storage
- Streets and homes flooded

1. **Intense rainfall**: Short, extreme bursts are more frequent in a warming climate, as in Mumbai's 944 mm at Santacruz on 26 July 2005.
2. **Lost lakes and streams**: Hyderabad's tanks and nalas were built over, as the Kirloskar Committee warned, and Pune's Ambil Odha was narrowed before its 2019 flood.
3. **Concrete and old drains**: Hyderabad's built-up cover rose 41% in 2000-2015 (WRI India), while Mumbai's drains were designed for only 25 mm an hour.

**Why Smart Cities Are Not Spared**

1. **Gadgets over drains**: The Smart Cities Mission funded sensors and command centres, not natural drainage, so Pune, a Mission city, still flooded, as did tech-hub Hyderabad.
2. **Fragmented control**: Lakes, drains and land use sit with different agencies, colonies stand inside lake beds, and tides or swollen rivers block outfalls.

**Way Forward**

1. **Blue network and sponge design**: De-encroach lakes and flood plains, protect wetlands like East Kolkata, and mandate permeable paving and retention ponds.
2. **Funding and warning**: Redesign drains under NDMA's Urban Flood Risk Management Programme for seven metros (2023), and scale up IFLOWS-type warning under one metropolitan flood authority.

**Conclusion**

Urban floods are largely a planning failure in a warming climate. Giving water its space back, through restored lakes and permeable land, will make cities resilient, in line with SDG 11.

Account for the huge flooding of million cities in India including the smart ones like Hyderabad and Pune. Suggest lasting remedial measures.

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