Why did Delhi drown under torrential rains, surge in water levels of Yamuna

Mismanaged urban growth haunts NCT as climate extremes wreak havoc

Last week, parts of Delhi were submer­ged after torrential rains lashed the city, with water levels of the Yamuna hitting record highs and breaching into the heart of the national capital. Several climate reports have said that thanks to global warming, such urban floods that used to transpire once in a decade earlier are now occurring every year in one or the other city. Last year, Bengaluru faced similar urban flooding.

What is worse, such extreme occurrences would only exacerbate with every passing year, the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. As the city continues to battle the worst deluge in recent years, poor urban planning, mismanaged sanitation and drainage system coupled with a lack of climate-resilient infrastructure has come under the spotlight.

Water water everywhere, nowhere to go

In the last two decades, rampant infrastructure creation in and around the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi has overlooked the supportive drainage and sanitation network. Additionally, construction in the low-lying satellite areas, which act as natural aquifers, has choked the water control chain of the NCT.

Close to 66 per cent of the development in Delhi during this period is in high water recharge potential zones. Several reports have pointed out that most of the development work in Delhi is being undertaken outside the municipal zones, which exacerbates the lack of efficient drainage.

A recent report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) said that Delhi has witnessed a decrease in its blue cover (lakes, streams, river catchment areas) and water recharge potential during the last decade. The report, “Urban Blue-Green Conundrum”, said the blue cover in Delhi decreased by 36 per cent between 2000 and 2015 and the lost recharge volume was the highest in Delhi among the 10 cities studied by WRI.

“Degradation of natural infrastructure impacts the resilience of entire urban regions. Disadvantaged groups are at a higher risk as they are often located in high-risk zones (such as lake beds and floodplains) or locations with no natural infrastructure (such as green spaces),” said the report.

Jaya Dhindaw, program director, integrated development, planning and resilience at WRI, said that while a majority of development in the last two decades in major cities had happened outside the municipal boundaries, natural infrastructure existed in these peripheral areas. “That is where the flow, which includes the floodwater, goes. That area and areas of natural drainage are getting built upon,” she said.

Another concern is that either the stormwater drains or the network of such drains is missing in these peripheral areas, she added. If there is no network, it means that the water accumulates in one place as it does not have a place to trickle through. “That is why you see localised effects. The entire city is not inundated but there are certain pockets that get inundated,” Dhindaw explained.

Better plans, more money for future risks

As extreme weather events become more recurrent with global warming, experts opine that burgeoning cities like Delhi should have a futuristic urban management plan with financing towards long-term climate resilience. Most of these efforts would be spearheaded by municipal corporations that are sparsely financed, especially for making long-term plans. The municipal bodies instead rely on short-term measures, which only add to the crises.

Business Standard analysed the budgetary outlay and expenditure of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and found that the expenditure towards water supply, flood control and urban development has been less than the budgetary outlay. During the fiscal year 2022-23, the revenue of MCD was Rs 8,900 crore, as informed by the lieutenant governor of Delhi in May this year, terming it the best-ever revenue collection. But it still lags its planned expenditure, which stood at Rs 10,000 crore in FY23 and it is estimated at Rs 16,024 crore in the current financial year.

Presenting the first ever budget of the unified MCD, Mayor Shelly Oberoi had said that the highest-ever budgetary allocation had been made for sanitation, at 27 per cent of the total budget of Rs 4,465 crore.

But finances aside, a majority of municipal bodies are unequipped on the data front, too.

Dhindaw pointed out that many utilities and agencies do not have comprehensive data on stormwater drain networks, for underground as well as overground. “Cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata have underground pipes that are over a hundred years old, and there is no data on where they exist, what their capacity is, and what condition they are in. Land developers then do not know how to properly plan for and manage drainage systems,” she said.

She added that designing effective water percolation was required in new development areas, rather than concretising everything.

The WRI report noted that while few examples were now emerging in cities like Delhi and Mumbai where development authorities have explicitly included natural or blue-green infrastructure in city and regional development plans, the effects of these policies were yet to be seen on the ground as these were still in the draft phase and yet to be legally notified.

“These are systemic problems and band-aid solutions will not work. We need short-term measures so that we can reduce the impact on lives and livelihoods in cities. We also need planned long-term measures to build resilience against future shocks,” said Dhindaw.