Mumbai Monsoon Declared Best in Years by Officials Also Reporting Record Flooding

BMC simultaneously celebrates above-average rainfall as ‘a vital resource for reservoir replenishment’ and apologises for its effect on roads, commutes, and the three wards currently underwater

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

MUMBAI, INDIA — The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation issued simultaneous press releases Tuesday celebrating the current monsoon as “the most robust and beneficial rainfall season in seven years, with reservoir levels reaching 94 percent of capacity for the first time since 2017” and apologising for “the temporary waterlogging and transportation disruptions affecting the eastern suburbs, the western suburbs, parts of the island city, and what a regional disaster management official described as “most of the places where people are,” a parallel communication strategy that the BMC’s media team described as “comprehensive stakeholder messaging” and residents of the affected areas described as “two press releases instead of one apology and a solution.”

The Communications Strategy

The celebratory press release, issued at 9:14 a.m., notes that Mumbai’s seven lakes have received 2,340mm of rainfall as of the date of issue, that the lakes are collectively at 94 percent capacity, that this “ensures water security for Mumbai’s 21 million residents through at least the following summer,” and that the Maharashtra government “thanks citizens for their patience during the monsoon period.” It does not mention flooding. It includes a photograph of Tulsi Lake looking full and serene in early morning light. The lake is genuinely full. The photograph is genuinely beautiful.

The apology press release, issued at 9:22 a.m., eight minutes later, acknowledges that “certain areas of the city have experienced above-average waterlogging due to the intensity of rainfall events” and that the BMC is “deploying all available pumping capacity” and “working to restore normalcy at the earliest.” The apology press release does not mention reservoir levels. It includes a photograph of an NDRF team in an inflatable boat on what appears to be a road in Kurla. The road is genuinely a boat route at that moment. The photograph is genuinely accurate.

The Flooding

The flooding that prompted the apology release had by Tuesday afternoon affected an area the Maharashtra State Disaster Management Authority described as “significant portions of greater Mumbai,” with water levels above knee height reported in seventeen wards, above waist height in four, and what one local councillor in Vikhroli described as “shoulder height in front of the school, which is closed, and also in front of the post office, which is open because the postmaster said the mail must go through, which I respect even though I am not sure the letters will survive.”

The Western Railway suspended services on three lines for four hours. The Central Railway ran at 60 percent capacity. BEST bus routes in nine wards were redirected or suspended. The local trains that were running were, by all accounts, carrying approximately twice their design capacity of passengers standing in water that had entered the cars at low-lying stations, which is a circumstance that Times of India Mumbai desk noted has occurred in some form in every monsoon since records began and which the BMC describes each year as “unprecedented in its specific characteristics” while also noting that the drainage infrastructure requires “comprehensive long-term investment” that has been described as comprehensively requiring long-term investment since approximately 2005.

The Infrastructure Question

Mumbai’s stormwater drainage system was designed to handle 25mm of rainfall per hour. Climate monitoring shows that peak rainfall events in the city now regularly exceed 60mm per hour, a gap that the BMC’s infrastructure department has proposed closing through a forty-seven crore rupee drainage upgrade programme that has been in planning since 2015, partly implemented, partly audited, and partially the subject of a corruption inquiry that was resolved in 2021 and whose resolution did not involve any drainage pipes being installed. The BMC said the upgrade programme was “on track” and that the current monsoon’s waterlogging was “within the parameters of what existing infrastructure can be expected to handle during extreme rainfall events,” which is accurate if the expected parameter is “flooding” and if the expected response is two simultaneous press releases about how good and bad the water is. The reservoir is at 94 percent. The road is at 100 percent water. Both things are true. Both press releases are accurate. The city continues.

The BMC’s Stormwater Drain upgrade programme, which has been described as “ongoing” since 2015, received 340 crore rupees in the current municipal budget, which the BMC said was “the largest single-year allocation for drainage infrastructure in the corporation’s history.” Independent municipal finance analysts noted that 340 crore rupees, while significant, represents approximately 0.7 percent of the estimated 47,000 crore rupees required for the full drainage system upgrade identified in the 2005 Chitale Committee report, a report commissioned after the catastrophic July 26, 2005 floods that killed 1,094 people, and whose recommendations have been described as “under implementation” in every subsequent BMC budget document including the current one. The 0.7 percent annual funding rate suggests the full upgrade would require approximately 139 years at the current pace, which takes it to approximately 2163, by which point the city’s topography, population, and climate context will all be materially different. The BMC said it was “exploring additional funding mechanisms including central government grants and infrastructure bonds.” The monsoon does not wait for funding mechanisms. It arrives in June. The pumps are deployed. The press releases are issued. The city adjusts, as it has for decades, to the gap between what the infrastructure was designed to handle and what the climate now delivers, which is the real situation that neither press release fully captures.

Reporting above water at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.

Also flooding at The Onion | The Shovel | Waterford Whispers

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/mumbai-monsoon-best-years-officials-report-record-flooding-bmc/