BENGALOORU; what does it have in common with Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Gurugram?

What does Bangalore have in common with Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Gurgaon?

The most obivous thing that comes to mind about the commonality is that the names of all these cities have changed! They are Bengaluru, Chennai,Mumbai, Kolkota and Gurugram.

Other than that, save for a few pockets here and there; and maybe spanking world class airports and metros; and maybe a few expressways the infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired.

Now getting to the meat of the post; the one thing that has become ever so omnipresent and common between these cities is FLOODS .  How could one miss that? That definitely has got to be among the top 2 or 3 problems now. How could civic authorities in Bangalore (or Bengalooru) screw up so badly? Oh, wait a minute, looks like they are not alone as i just pointed out in asking what is common among the cities i just mentioned.  The reason i wrote this post is because i watched a fascinating documentary on Tokyo's elaborate flood control system -  http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4112766.htm    It is a testament to a country that has achieved so much with so little.

Bangalore including the other cities i mentioned screwed up very badly by rapid ill planned urbanization and indiscrimnately encroaching upon and building over nature's flood control systems like marshlands and lakes. But, that is not all, to make matters worse a corrupt and incompetent govt machinery did not plan, invest, build and maintian an adequate network of storm water channels, underground surge tanks..the whole works + bells and whistles that make up a flood control mechansim. I doubt the authorities even know what flood control means. I urge fellow praja members take 15 minues and watch that amazing documentary.

The other notable and famous example of flood control infrastructure in a major metropolitan area is Kuala Lumpur's smart tunnel - http://www.itsinternational.com/categories/detection-monitoring-machine-vision/features/success-of-kuala-lumpurs-dual-purpose-tunnel/   .There is a detailed documentary on this on youtube from Nationa Geogrpahic; please watch that also when you get a chance.

It is quite shocking that a basic workable flood control infrastructure is non existent in any Indian city. Along with flood control the same infrastructure can be used to potentially recharge ground water if the right visionary planning is done; here is a detailed article on one such idea - http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/groundwater/recharge/