According to Himachal Pradesh’s Disaster Management Authority, 367 lives have been lost in “rain-related incidents” in the state since the onset of the monsoon this year. The state’s chief minister has said it will take at least a year to rebuild infrastructure wrecked by extreme weather events. It has taken a calamity for the state administration to acknowledge the need to overhaul drainage systems and rethink construction methods. In the coming months and years, the Himachal government will have to translate words into action. This task is incumbent on most state governments. As the director of the Centre of Climate Change Research at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology Pune, R Krishnan, recently told this paper, climate mitigation involves both “hydrological management and governance issues”.
According to most studies, three-quarters of the infrastructure that will exist in cities by 2050 is yet to be built. This is an opportunity to put in place climate-resilient amenities. Experiments are underway to promote mixed land use on the principle of transit-oriented development (TOD). Some metros have plans to cluster workplaces, housing enclaves and market complexes in one locality with a central transport hub. This could reduce the use of private transport and reduce GHG footprints. However, most such plans pay short shrift to the needs of the poor. Delhi’s draft master plan for 2041, placed in the public domain two years ago, invited criticism for drawing on TOD criteria while jettisoning the equity principle at the core of this urban development method.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Awas Yojana, Jal Jeevan Mission and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation can combine investment in environmental services while promoting equity. The trouble, however, is that local government bodies, whose inputs should have been critical to developing synergies between social welfare and environmental protection, rarely perform basic municipal tasks with efficiency. The fact that responsibilities for urban affairs lie with different agencies complicates matters. In flood-hit Shimla, for instance, the state government constructs drainage facilities while the municipality is tasked with maintenance. This division of responsibilities has bred inefficiency. Addressing the climate crisis will require adept governance at all levels. The increasing number of extreme events is a warning that this task cannot be postponed.
