Government of India while allocating the funds will prioritise cities more prone to floods
The Government of India plans to spend nearly $300 million in next two years to build a robust flood control infrastructure. The focus will be on water bodies and drainage system particularly in seven cities including Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru, a government official told Reuters.
India’s drainage system has been a long-standing problem, and it gets worse during the monsoons. Recently, the government in its first flood control measure announced said it will focus on water bodies. Krishna S. Vatsa, one of the three members of the National Disaster Management Authority said the going further we will incorporate early-warning systems.
“While the importance of storm water drainage in reducing the runoff cannot be overlooked, they also need to be supplemented by some of the nature-based solutions such as increasing the capacity of rivers and lakes to carry rain water,” said Vatsa.
Approximately, $25 billion will be spent on developing a better drain management system for Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. The cities will be allocated $5 billion each. Nearly $2.5 billion each will be allocated to Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune. Vatsa, added that no funds have been allotted to Delhi currently, since more priority is given to cities more prone to floods.
Additionally, last year the government rolled out a policy to nearly triple wastewater recycling by the end of the decade to 70 per cent.
Back in June, Ratings agency Moody’s warned India’s growing water stress could pose a threat to its economic growth which is projected at 7.2 per cent.
“Decreases in water supply can disrupt agricultural production and industrial operations, resulting in inflation in food prices and declines in income for affected businesses and workers, especially farmers, while sparking social unrest,” said Moody’s