The urgent need for people to organise themselves to save waterbodies was emphasised by experts at a development dialogue organised as part of its 20th Foundation Day celebration by Dhan Foundation here on Sunday.
Focussing on the shifting geographies of urbanisation all over the world, Jayaraj Sundaresan of Indian Institute of Human Settlements said 90 per cent of world's urban population growth was taking place in developing countries since 2007 and India would have about 590 million people living in cities by 2030. This would necessitate creation of 700 to 900 million square feet of new commercial and residential space, the size of Chicago, and 2.5 billion square feet of roads and other infrastructure every year.
He also pointed to the fading of the line dividing urban and rural areas and said that in urban and human development geography, the ‘urban’ was not just located in the city. It was not advisable to consider the urban and rural as separate geographies as they were connected ones. Dr. Jayaraj said new solutions were required to shape this rapid urbanisation.
Looking at urban floods as a significant experience in the 21st century, he said new cities were getting added to the flood map in India. Urban flooding was a result of people’s actions on urban development. While emphasising that governance of lakes did not exist in isolation from the political relations forged in everyday socio-political world, he pointed out that people from diverse social and political backgrounds had become actively engaged in reclaiming the governance of lakes of Bengaluru. These activist-networks had been formed out of the realisation that court orders, government reports, programmes and directives alone could not ensure protection of lakes without active and public struggle of ordinary citizens.
He opined that future water trajectories in places such as Madurai would depend on the collective capacity for struggle against actions and decisions that produced the ‘killing waters.’
Expressing concern over growth of hospitals in Madurai, which is starved of industries, S. Rajamohan, Managing Director, Enviro Care India, said only 30 per cent of waste water was treated in the city and the rest was allowed to stagnate in open spaces. This led to mosquito breeding and resultant water-borne diseases. The atmospheric temperature, even in a pre-monsoon month, was higher than normal and the evaporation rate stood at 4.5 mm per day. This was bound to go up in the coming years, resulting in fast depletion of groundwater.
It was regrettable that no public effort had been made to preserve waterbodies in Madurai, whose average annual rainfall was more than that of Coimbatore. He said that people could not blame the government or civic body for the sorry state of affairs but realise their responsibility as citizens. The need of the hour was collective action to protect the waterbodies in Madurai.
