Our growth and urban planning: On different planets

Every monsoon is a reminder of the divergence between what cities need and their build-up of infrastructure

- RAJRISHI SINGHAL

Metro stations in Athens are like archaeological museums, featuring pottery shards and other artifacts discovered during excavations. Moscow's subway stops are like art galleries, grandiose and distinctive, adorned with ornate chandeliers and striking murals. Mumbai's recently inaugurated mid-town metro station, in contrast, turned into a water-world on 26 May, with the season's first downpour flooding its concourse and platforms. This embarrassing incident symbolizes problems with India's haphazard urbanization and its official approach to infrastructure build-up. More critically, it highlights laxity in recognizing the effects of climate change.

What made the incident doubly disconcerting were proclamations by Niti Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam that the Indian economy had become the world's fourth largest. The incongruity between that statement and the lived experience of Mumbai commuters and Indians coping with sub-par infrastructure elsewhere was striking.

Yet, there was a common link between that statement and the flooding episode: Subrahmanyam seemed to have jumped the gun (we'll know if the Indian economy has overtaken Japan's only once the current year is over), a precipitate action like the metro station being pressed into service before it was made rain-proof. The episode also underscored the death of irony: officials attributed the flood to untimely monsoon downpours despite common knowledge that a coastal city like Mumbai witnesses heavy rainfall for four months every year.