Delhi Rains: Here's A Case for Making Our Cities More Climate Resilient

Delhi is waterlogged. Yet again.

Between 8:30 AM on Wednesday, 31 July, and 7:15 AM on Thursday, 1 August, Delhi received 147.5 mm rainfall, as recorded by the India Meteorological Department at Mayur Vihar's Salwan station.

The same evening, a 22-year-old woman and her three-year-old son drowned in an open drain that they couldn't see due to the waterlogged roads in East Delhi.

Severe waterlogging, heavy rains, flooded areas - none of this is new to Delhi. The cycle is repeated every monsoon season. The only thing different is that the intensity seems to increase each year, affecting more and more people.

Speaking to The Quint, Kavin Kumar Kandasamy, CEO of ProClime which is a unified service provider in the climate space, says,

"Smaller cities and villages are moving towards the big cities, which means there is going to be an increase in strain on the cities. As the strain increases in a smaller geography, poor planning can lead to a lot of unrest – for instance, water scarcity could become the norm. But apart from that, our social development index will take a beating too."

He adds that increased strain on cities would mean that the gap between the haves and the have-nots would increase.

"...the rich would be able to afford the cost of climate change and poor planning, but the poor will have to bear the brunt of it. Cities would also become unlivable, the economy would take a beating, and all our progress would go back into a downward spiral."

- Kavin Kumar Kandasamy

News Article Link: https://www.thequint.com/climate-change/earth-day-environment-climate-resilience-cities-planning#read-more