In India, development is for sloganeering alone

We keep hearing our politicians ranging from the PM onwards harping on the issue of development. However, with a few extra inches of rain every year every city and town of India gets inundated. In some cities like Mumbai the same areas like Parel, Lalbagh, Dadar, Matunga, Sion have been getting flooded for the last 20 years or so and the municipality has not been able to come up with any solution for the problem. Not that newer areas like Vashi & Navi Mumbai have fared any better. These areas where a lot of new development has taken place have also joined the chronic flooding list. As far as the rural and outlying areas of the country are concerned they are no better. Assam has for generations been seeing flooding during the monsoon and the same is true for Orissa and parts of UP. Though Bihar this year has been spared with the rain gods lenient on them with the rains failing there. Even the capital Delhi has been prone to flood scares with the rising Yamuna every year and even otherwise in the first rains this year some of the areas like near Minto Bridge continue to get inundated. At other times Delhi sees a drinking water shortage particularly in the hot summers but just a few months later with the rains setting in some 5 Lakh Cusecs of water released by Haryana through their Barrage as announced recently is allowed to go waste! At other places around the country we have been seeing rain related deaths like in Kerala. Is this development? Development should mean the ability to manage nature’s vagaries and harness them like in the instance of the monsoon for the longer term benefit of the people and minimise the number of fatalities that occur as a consequence of weather related disasters. However in India development is more for sloganeering before elections and for profiteering round the year by the politicians and the bureaucracy. We the people are  also at fault for accepting the problems as above silently being bogged down with the compulsions of daily life and adopting the fatalistic approach that after all the rainy season is only for 3 months in a year. This cannot go on like this and people need to change and be more vocal and demand solutions to the problems they face in the surroundings around them.