Cities Must Address Root Causes of Urban Flooding

As the monsoon season nears, cities across India prepare for the same story to play out once again.

- AMIT MITRA AND SANJIB POHIT

Flooded streets, stalled traffic, stranded commuters and inundated homes are no longer rare disasters; they are routine. In Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, the question isn't if streets will flood but when and how badly. Each year brings the same chaos, the same inconvenience and sometimes tragic loss of life.

But while this recurring nightmare is visible to all, the deeper cause remains buried under layers of cement. The core issue is not just outdated drainage; it's the unchecked concretization of our cities, which has made them incapable of dealing with even moderate rainfall.

The recurrent urban flooding witnessed in Delhi and other Indian cities is often attributed to ageing or inadequate drainage infrastructure. However, an equally critical and structurally embedded issue is the widespread and escalating concretization of urban landscapes. In a notable instance last year, Delhi recorded 228 millimetres of rainfall in a single episode, far exceeding the capacity of its drainage system, which was originally designed under a master plan dating back to 1976. While this antiquated plan is undeniably insufficient for the city's contemporary scale and density, it is the transformation of the ground itself that is compounding the crisis.