A couple of hours of rain on Tuesday morning exposed the unpreparedness of the authorities for the monsoon. The local administrations could not have been caught off-guard, as this is a recurring problem that has never been fully addressed and so repeats itself. Flooded streets greeted motorists and pedestrians across Goa in towns and villages and the State capital Panjim proved no exception. The usual streets were instantly inundated, reminding all of the empty promises by politicians to ensure that Panjim would never flood again. The State capital got flooded, the rest of the State got flooded, and it was only when the rain abated late in the day that the waters receded. It was as if nature felt sorry for the people and decided to reduce the pain somewhat.
In the case of Panjim there are at least three authorities to direct the city’s planning. There is the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) whose primary task pre-monsoon is to clear the drains and prune the trees. Then there is the MLA of Panjim, who during the campaign for the by-election last year had promised no more flooding, and then there is the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Corporation, that is also associated with the CCP in giving the city a facelift and taking it to up several notches of smartness. Until now, none of that smartness has been seen, and Panjim experienced firsthand just how unsmart has been the management of the city with the brief showers of rain.
It is obvious that the smart city project has not yielded any positive results in the realm of flooding of streets. Not only has Panjim not gained any innovative smartness, even the most basic drainage system that has been giving recurring problems has not been improved to give Panjim residents and its visitors roads that do not get flooded. How difficult can it be to identify the areas where the same issue occurs annually, and determine why it happened and find a solution to it? The city received 3.8 inches of rain on Tuesday that led to the water logging, and there are still months to go before the rains abate.
This is not just a problem in Panjim. Margao fared no better the same day, as rainwater flowed over the drains inundating the town, and Margao Municipal Council Square had the appearances of a canal. The water logging in the town led to the Shadow Council questioning the tenders of the MMC on the cleaning of drains. Areas of Pajifond, Malbhat had perhaps the worst of it. In Vasco the rains brought down a number of trees, one of them damaging a car. In Bardez the fields at Guirim got flooded with rainwater, affecting the farming operations that had just started. At Sanquelim, the water level of River Walvanti rose and water had to be pumped out from the market. This was the scene across Goa with just one day of rain.
These are early days in the monsoon, and the entire season is still ahead, but is there any solution on the horizon? Unless the local authorities take the pre-monsoon cleaning of drains and cutting of trees on a serious note, water logging on the streets and uprooting of trees will continue to occur across the State. What happens on an annual basis is that the municipalities and the panchayats do undertake to clear the gutters and do prune the trees, but this is done so perfunctorily that it hardly makes much of a difference when the rains actually begin. There is no scientific attempt made to find a permanent solution. Unless this is done, Goa will suffer the same way every monsoon.
