The recent floods in Bengaluru have paralysed the city’s tech spine. The point has been driven home with viral images of some of the city’s most influential people being rescued by tractor and lavish villas under water. Unfortunately, pictures of adverse weather phenomena bringing a city to its knees are becoming increasingly common in India, with the urban authorities concerned finding themselves woefully unprepared every time a new disaster hits.
Similar scenes have played out in Delhi (2013, 2021), Mumbai (2005, 2017), Chennai (2015, 2021), and Hyderabad (2020), leaving behind extensive losses to property and life. In terms of damages, Mumbai reportedly lost ₹14,000 crore between 2005 and 2015 while the figure for Chennai was an estimated ₹15,000 crore in 2015 alone. Added to this are the social and human costs, which almost always disproportionately affect the poorer sections of society as they tend to live in the more environmentally vulnerable areas. Even in the case of Bengaluru, while the media primarily focused on the disruption caused to the Information Technology industry, several informal settlements were also destroyed.
