A day before the 19th anniversary of the 26th July deluge, Mumbai recorded the second wettest July ever. Needless to say, the city also witnessed multiple incidents of waterlogging, flooding and disruption in train services and traffic snarls.
Some of the explanations for the floods included record heavy rains, climate change, inadequate desilting of drains. There were protests on the ground and outrage on social media.
Incidentally, floods — its causes and solutions in Mumbai — have been studied since 2005, when the biggest and most damaging flood struck Mumbai and claimed 1094 lives after the city witnessed 944.2 mm of rainfall. Various enquiry commissions were set up, and they submitted their reports and recommendations. Yet, Mumbai’s tryst with floods continues unabated.
One of the important reports was by the Dr Madhav Chitale committee that looked into the 26th July deluge. It recommended rejuvenation of rivers, removing encroachments around them and “no development buffer zones” around rivers.
Subsequently, following a public interest litigation by Vanashakti and Jalbiradari, the Supreme Court asked a team of experts from NEERI and IIT-B with a few citizens to study and recommend measures to mitigate flooding in Mumbai particularly around Mithi.
In 2018, the SC-appointed committee found that key recommendations of the Chitale committee had not been implemented 12 years after the deluge. It found that Mumbai had not even prepared flood-risk zone maps even though data such as rainfall figures, river cross-section, tidal data, counter maps had been collected. Similarly, seismic and hydrological mapping data were not available.
Chitale Committee’s flood mitigation counsel ignored
In 2018, the committee reviewed the measures implemented by the BMC and the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), based on recommendations of the Chitale committee and others to mitigate floods.
It found that, following the Chitale committee’s report, the BMC did widen and deepen the Mithi River. However, it failed to create a buffer and no-development zone (NDZ) along the river, as recommended.
The encroachments in this NDZ were neither shifted nor were the buffer eco-park zones maintained. Encroachments continued along the path of the river obstructing its flow.
The retaining walls were built without considering riverine hydrology, environmental and flooding aspects. The committee noted that the authorities approach was to “tame and contain the river and its ecosystem that reflected utter arrogance of power over nature.”
Forest areas like Aarey could act as major retention zones but construction of a wall in that region has damaged the floodplain and its catchment. The high concrete walls built along both edges of the entire length of the Mithi, severed the ecological relationship of the river with the surrounding ecosystems — floodplains, wetlands, vegetation.
The committee discovered that buildings and slums were built right up to the river’s edge, and landfilling along the river caused obstructions and critical diversions in its course. This led to blockages and silt formation downstream.
Read more: Mumbai floods once again. Will BMC’s climate budget help?
SC committee’s recommendations for flood mitigation
Here are some of the committee’s recommendations:
- Removal of retaining walls along four of Mumbai’s rivers: Oshiwara, Dahisar, Poisar and Mithi. This particularly applied to the upstream areas, including the National Park and Aarey.
- Development of a 50-metre width on both sides of the Mithi river, as flood plains, eco parks, forests, plantations. Relocation of buildings and slums that fell within the proposed 50-metre Mithi River NDZ.
- Reinvigoration of the over 300 km of watercourses of Mumbai, including all four rivers that had been turned into nullahs.
- Reopening or rerouting of certain natural rainwater gradients in the Aarey that were obstructed due to landfilling for the Metro Rail yard, to ensure surface water reaches the river without obstruction.
Despite the recommendations by the Chitale committee and the SC-monitored committee, little has been done, and Mumbai floods every monsoon.
Unending floods: Elephant in the room
The real cause for aggravating floods has been large-scale concrete development in river catchment areas.
The SC-committee found that the authorities chose to “restrict the ecosystem area” primarily dictated by short-term real estate greed, amongst other interests, with one of the major ones being “maximising land for construction.”
In a 2018 article on Here’s why Mumbai floods year after year, urban researchers, Hussain Indorewalla and Shweta Wagh pointed out how Mumbai’s 20-Year Development Plan proposed to open up 3,300 hectares of green cover for projects like the coastal freeway project and the Metro.
“Instead of strengthening our existing environmental and urban systems – that constitute our existing socio-ecological infrastructure – we invest faith and money in mega-projects like the Brihanmumbai Storm Water Drainage (BRIMSTOWAD) project, that are often ineffective and almost always unaccountable,” they wrote.
The SC committee also observed, “Over 620 acres of land filling into the river and the wetlands and mangroves has been done.” It said that an integral part of the river’s estuary had been developed as a business hub by MMRDA, a state government agency.
Also, a major obstruction at the mouth of the Mithi river, when it met the sea at Mahim bay, was due to landfilling and construction of roads and flyover turn-around, resulting in narrowing of the mouth of the river.
Deliberate misreading of the Chitale report
Gopal Jhaveri, founder of River March, which has been working to save Mumbai’s rivers, says Chitale report is being conveniently and deliberately misinterpreted by the authorities.
“Entire hills have been concretised or taken over by slums forcing gushing rain waters onto the streets. Desilting of rivers is a sham. Grounds are being concretised even for parking lots, as if cars cannot be parked on open grounds, thus reducing the runoff coefficient. Mangroves have been chopped at Charkop, Borivali, Malwani.”
About Rs 8,000 crore has been spent on walls along the rivers as part of the BRIMSTOWAD project and even riverbeds have been concretised.
Clamour for capital intensive solutions
Activists and planners have consistently spoken about a holistic approach and criticised short-term, capital intensive solutions such as retaining walls.
Architect PK Das, who was also part of the SC monitoring committee, alleges that Mumbai floods continue because the State is turning a blind eye to sustainable nature-based solutions and only interested in pushing high capital engineering solutions.
“An ecological approach needs to be adopted and the relationships of rivers with its flora and fauna needs to be revived and restored. The intimate and intricate relationship between different natural courses has to be understood and not segregated by concrete walls thereby arresting the flow of water.”
Lubaina Rangwala, urban planner-architect and associate director of World Resources Institute (WRI) says the approach needs to shift from flood hotspot management to catchment management solutions. “We are yet to map our groundwater and aquifers. Our runoff coefficient is nearly one due to large-scale concretisation, says Lubaina adding that integrating nature-based interventions and natural ecosystems to flood management is required.
Another monsoon, same floods and same hardships
Even as the monsoon continues to flood and disrupt regular life in Mumbai in 2024, citizens once again experience that little has been achieved since the deluge. The Chitale committee report came out in 2006, the SC-monitored expert committee report was submitted in 2018.
Stalin Dayanand, director of Vanashakti, the petitioner NGO in SC, says that Mumbai refuses to learn any lessons despite regular floods and reclamation goes on unabated — sometimes in Bandra Kurla Complex and at other times within Aarey, resulting in floods in a forest, a completely new phenomenon.
He points out, “Till such time that Mumbai’s rivers are not given their breathing spaces, Mumbai will continue to flood.” Given how far we are from restoring our rivers, every heavy rainfall day will entail floods, waterlogging and painful memories of July 26th.