prasad1
Active member
This week's flood in Kashmir, the worst in half a century, has left a trail of devastation so extensive that from the aerial pictures it is hard to imagine there was ever life below the watery landscape. With river embankments breached, agriculture eroded, cities flooded, roads and bridges washed away, the flood was too devastating a natural act to be easily averted by manmade defences. Obviously the government's initial task is to save lives. But beyond the relief efforts, the eventual thinking on rebuilding would require a whole new environmental turn. Future construction in the state would need to take into account existing flood plains, earthquake possibilities, and stiff regulations for building in river valleys and on mountain slopes.
Travel anywhere in the mountains in North or South India, and one sees roads tear away large swathes of hillsides, leaving exposed gashes of earth; new housing developments have been made in imitation of city houses. In places remote and inaccessible, hotels called Himalayan Heights and Valley View rise five to six storeys; apartment blocks, even higher, are placed on mountain peaks and sold as 'your home in the hills' by local builders. In Coonoor and Ooty, tea and cardamom estates are converted to luxury housing for residents of nearby Bangalore and Chennai.
Kashmir now, Kedarnath last year, Nainital even earlier, and annual instances of coastal deluge — all indicate that state governments need to take land and construction policy seriously and not merely treat it as an instrument of tourism. Many countries, especially in Scandinavia, have developed lighter forms of building for their mountain and riverside terrain. Others forbid construction in all geologically unstable ecologies. Only a savage and inert bureaucracy continues to allow conventional construction on difficult environmentally sensitive terrain; it may take several natural disasters to remind people of the consequences of illicit building actions.
Kedarnath to Kashmir, the tragedy of development - The Times of India
Travel anywhere in the mountains in North or South India, and one sees roads tear away large swathes of hillsides, leaving exposed gashes of earth; new housing developments have been made in imitation of city houses. In places remote and inaccessible, hotels called Himalayan Heights and Valley View rise five to six storeys; apartment blocks, even higher, are placed on mountain peaks and sold as 'your home in the hills' by local builders. In Coonoor and Ooty, tea and cardamom estates are converted to luxury housing for residents of nearby Bangalore and Chennai.
Kashmir now, Kedarnath last year, Nainital even earlier, and annual instances of coastal deluge — all indicate that state governments need to take land and construction policy seriously and not merely treat it as an instrument of tourism. Many countries, especially in Scandinavia, have developed lighter forms of building for their mountain and riverside terrain. Others forbid construction in all geologically unstable ecologies. Only a savage and inert bureaucracy continues to allow conventional construction on difficult environmentally sensitive terrain; it may take several natural disasters to remind people of the consequences of illicit building actions.
Kedarnath to Kashmir, the tragedy of development - The Times of India
