The Hindu Business Line : In a liquid state...

FOR long, the TV and print media have been takers of criticism. They have been accused of blowing up news and sometimes giving wrong news. After July 26, the drowning Mumbaikar will have a kind word for them with young female and male reporters doing their very best, coolly and efficiently. They stuck to facts, backed with camera shots. For me, Star News was the best channel. Sitting at home, one wondered how, in the first place, they made it to the places. The staff of Star News channel made their arduous way to the critical spots such as Kalina, Thane, Dombivili, Kalyan and Badlapur to feed the viewing public with on-the-spot updates. If journalists could make it to the flooded areas one wonders why the Government machinery could not.

Mobile companies dumping mobiles on an unwary public have not yet come up with any explanations on why their wonder technology went into silent mode after July 26. Why have them now at all strung around one's neck? Mumbaikars held hands to walk through walls of water, while giving up on any help from Mantralay. Volunteers offered food to the stranded, while the autorickshaws plied passengers free.

Living in Borivili (west) there was nothing to whine about as supply of power and water was normal. That gave one time to skim TV channels with hours spent on viewing Star News beaming the latest on a city trying to keep alive without food, water and power. The Government took a swipe at the TV channels for not covering the relief effort. But was there any relief effort? And when Government officials, like those manning airports, were asked for information they said everything was normal when it was not. Some stranded passengers had the worst to say about Air India.

On Sunday, the Chief Minister announced a committee headed by A.P. Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to bring order to Maharashtra. On Monday, the Indian Express came out with the news that Sinha did not know of the assignment as he was in Spain on leave. "I am only getting to know about this committee from phone calls like yours," Sinha told the Indian Express when contacted in Spain. The Indian bureaucracy is of no use and the Deluge proved the point.

Local MPs and MLAs did not turn up on the streets; they will be available when the next elections are announced. Top IAS officials (not ministers with commandos trailing them) could have made their way to areas under more than five feet of water to direct relief effort and their very presence could have sent the message that the Government is working.

On July 26, when the Mumbaikar was trapped on flooded roads the State Government told the public not to stir out from their homes. It does not make much sense to repeatedly claim that the rains were the worst ever as a disaster management system is meant for such situations. Builders squeezed shut the Mithi river to build the Bandra-Kurla Complex; the builders hacked (and still do) at the mangroves; they did it because the State Government allowed them to do so even when environmentalists protested. Vir Sanghvi writing in The Hindustan Times has told the tale of the Mithi river. Bittu Sahgal, Editor of Sanctuary, had warned the Centre that building the Bandra-Kurla Complex would be disastrous.

"According to Mr Sahgal, it was inevitable that the Mithi river which borders the complex would flood its banks during heavy rainfall if the Government went ahead with its plans. He had warned the MMRDA, which had diverted the river to construct the Bandra-Kurla Complex, that its plans did not provide for adequate drainage. For instance, the area where the Mithi river exits at Mahim is now one-third of its original size because of the reclamation. Further, a large mangrove patch between the river and the complex, which provided a natural barrier against flooding, was illegally reclaimed," wrote Sanghvi. It is still said environmentalists are against development. They are for forests and animals and against humans. No city ever shuts rivers or alters their flow but builders have done it in Mumbai turning them into choked nullas (drains).

Next on the list could be the maintenance of the Borivili National Park, which today is less of a forest and more of a tourist spot with cars and bikes taking over the place.

Through the week (except on the morning of July 27) Mumbai's many newspapers (including DNA) landed at the door by 7 in the morning. For this writer, the Indian Express and The Hindustan Times did a neat job, with some photographs in The Hindustan Times hard to look at for long.

Possibly the only absentee from the streets of Mumbai was the famed dabbawalla. Our dabbawalla, who carries food to my son's office in Worli, could not make it for a few days and to be fair he phoned up to say he would not come. For a week, the Mumbaikar was abandoned by the Government. He consoled himself with "Kay karaiche (What to do)." Today, with the sun out, the Mumbaikar is back in the local trains.

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