EDITORIAL: Myriad Monsoon Miseries

THE LIGHT OF ANDAMANS | ISSUE 12 | 16 SEPTEMBER 2011

EDITORIAL:

Myriad Monsoon Miseries

Disaster capitalism has etched deep in our memory after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. We Islanders realized how big the relief and rehabilitation industry is and how it helps in consolidating one's economic standing in the society. Disaster response has become one of the hottest industries today.

Monsoon too has become a sort of disaster for the Island territory. With every rainy season comes a set of woes that keeps coming knocking on our doors every season. And, soon after begins a race of reconstruction and maintenance. It has become a big business now, and we have monsoon contractors, who wait for the disaster to hit.

Monsoon this year has well and truly hit the islands. If in summer, its scarcity of water, then during monsoon, it's problem of plenty. The distribution network goes awry due to breaking of pipelines at vantage points. Our roads laid just a couple of months back turns into a pool of potholes.

Since January, there was hardly a month that did not see a fair amount of rains. With the onset of monsoon in April, it has been a state of perennial rain; sometimes in a continuous sheet, sometimes in bursts, sometime in the middle of bright sunshine, like a bolt from the blue allowing no time to take guard. It has disturbed normal life to an extent that people in general have come to realize that it's going to stay with us. Unfortunately, our Administration does not think so.

Or why our roads are unable to survive the monsoons or the pipelines burst every year creating artificial scarcity of water. For past ten days, the water supply system is badly affected in most of the rural areas. Maintenance work on war footing is going on. Traffic is blocked to do patchworks in the city. Fresh pipelines are being laid, which predictably will not withstand next monsoon.

There is no sufficient water storage facility in rural areas, which does not ring a bell anywhere. Mother Nature has been too generous and kind to make good the short supply of water that the people were suffering a couple of years back. Alas! She doesn't know we have just laid the foundation stonPublish Postes for more storage facilities and keep doing it on a regular basis.

It's high time, our policymakers realize that copy-paste of technology does not suit local conditions. At time, we need to go against the maxim and think and act locally to find indigenous solutions to our road and water woes.