Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 6: The daily life in much of India’s technology capital Bengaluru continues to be disrupted by floods caused by torrential rains, the Karnataka chief minister Basavraj Bommai has used the BJP’s favourite whip boy, the Congress, to blame for the sufferings caused to the people.
Talking to media persons on Tuesday, Bommai blamed the previous Congress governments’ ‘maladministration’ and “unplanned indiscriminate constructions” as well as unprecedented rains in Bengaluru for the deluge.
A constant stream of distressing videos show emerging out of Bengaluru show that neither the wealthy nor the poor have been spared by the flooding waters. Many IT employees in the Karnataka’s capital city, fondly called India’s Silicon Valley, have used tractors to go to work due to major waterlogging in the city, while houses in slums have also been completely submerged. Several social media users have called the crisis a great leveller.
Roads were inundated, rainwater entered homes, flights were diverted, buses and other vehicles broke down, schools were shut and boats were pressed into service as a result of the third highest single day rainfall the city has ever recorded. A 23-year-old woman was killed due to suspected electrocution while she was returning home from work on her scooter in inundated roads in Siddapura, Whitefield.
A video shared by Karnataka Congress General Secretary Rakshith Shivaram showed luxury bungalows inundated, with high-end cars half under water. The video clip shows people being evacuated on a tractor. “These are houses worth more than 30Cr,” he tweeted.
Several areas of Bengaluru remained waterlogged following heavy rainfall causing inconvenience to locals. People boarded tractors and cranes to make their way to their workplace through the flooded roads. Water supply to some localities has also been disrupted after a pump house in Mandya was flooded. Efforts are on to drain water out of the low-lying areas, officials said. On the third day of flooding, several areas remain waterlogged. Traffic movement has slowed down to a crawl as some key roads are inundated.
Bommai, however, disagreed and claimed that a “distorted picture” about Bengaluru was being created by the media. He said a picture was being portrayed that the entire city was facing difficulties, which was not the case. “Basically the issue lies in two zones, particularly the Mahadevapura zone for reasons such as presence of 69 tanks in that small area and almost all of them have either breached or are overflowing, secondly, all establishments are in low-lying areas, and the third is encroachments,” he listed out.
Blaming “maladministration and unplanned administration” of the previous Congress governments for the present misery, Bommai said they had given permissions for construction activities “right-left-centre” in the lake areas, on the tank bunds and buffer zones. They had never thought of maintaining the lakes, he said.
He said, despite all odds, his government has taken it up as a challenge to restore the rain battered city, and make sure that such things don’t recur in the future. “We have cleared lots of encroachments and we will continue to clear them. We are installing sluice gates to the tanks so that they can be managed better. I have instructed officials to ensure that the control room works 24/7. We have started de-watering in most of the areas. Other than one or two areas almost all areas have been de-watered,” he said, adding that rain is not giving respite to work properly as there have been rains every day.
He also pointed out the unprecedented downpour that was lashing the city. “Karnataka, especially Bengaluru has not received unprecedented heavy rain.. for the last 90 years such rain has not been recorded. All the tanks are full and are overflowing, some of them have breached, and there have been continuous rains, every day it is raining,” Bommai said.
Incidentally, the Indian Metrological Centre on Tuesday again predicted that heavy to very heavy rainfall would lash many parts of Karnataka including Bengaluru city till Friday. Noting that his government has taken it as a “challenge”, the Chief Minister said officers, engineers and workers and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams are working 24/7.
Observing that the TK Halli pump house in Malavalli taluk of Mandya which pumps Cauvery water to Bengaluru is affected due to overflowing Bheemeshwara River and water from the surrounding lakes, the Chief Minister said, two pump houses were affected, flood water is being drained out, but it will take two days to drain out water and to resume work in full capacity.
Till then, he said, alternative plan had been formulated for water supply to Bengaluru including use of 8,000 bore wells under the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). Water in tankers will be supplied on behalf of the government to the areas where there are no bore wells, he added.