Midweek Musings 27, 10.06.26

 

Critical significance of storm water drains. They are the catchment area for lakes and water bodies.

Healthy water bodies like lakes are catchment areas for rivers which supply drinking water to us. 

© Malini Shankar

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse Foundation

this blog could not be published yesterday 10th June because the internet connectivity in my place was dead and disintegrated!

Clogging of storm water drains (SWDs) is causing a very serious problem. It is clogged with dry waste and litter which ought to be stashed away in litter bins. So cleaning the SWDs amidst collected rain water is so much more expensive as resources and man power have to be deployed all over again. Secondly the toxins in the dry waste is polluting the rain water collected. The rain water collected in the SWDs are the feeders to the lakes. The lakes discharge to the nearest river. The rivers feed into bigger rivers from where our drinking water is sourced. By polluting SWDs one is unwittingly polluting one’s water supply system… thereby poisoning millions of other citizens, who are also tax paying citizens. Thirdly ignorant citizens and corrupt politicians collude to compromise safety of SWDs with sanitation and sewage being discharged into SWDs.

To most people storm water drains are cesspits where they permit themselves to litter with dry waste even sanitary pipes are let into these drains. It reflects a patriarchal mindset where those who callously throw litter into the drains expect that someone or somehow the debris and litter will be cleared. They are ignorant of the fact that these storm water drains are engineered to drain rain water into lakes. They are engineered by way of creating a catchment area network for urban lakes and tanks.

Tax revenue of the government – what you and I pay as tax is used to create an infrastructure that is to be used for the welfare and functioning of the community / society. Tax revenue of the government is – for example used to collect waste, transport it, treat it reuse it wherever permissible and discard as per scientific norms. Tax revenue is not meant to re-deploy resources where citizens are not doing their duty. Nothing reflects this glaring callousness than in abuse of systems – be it water supply or disdain towards separation of dry waste from wet waste or in callous discharge of sanitary wastes into SWDs.

Even if the governments install sewage treatment plants at the source of water inlet into the lakes, it is meant to clear industrial or accidental sludge / pollutants, not sanitation wastes. That means those who wantonly let sewage into SWDs are accountable to the other tax payers for this misdeed. Further, those who are guilty of letting sewage into SWDs are duty bound to cleanse the lakes and their sources: Storm Water Drains. The justifications runs thus:

Governments have installed sanitation infrastructure. You are meant to provide all necessary documents to get and use legitimate sanitation infrastructure. Further it is your responsibility to ensure that sanitation / sewage goes to this anointed infrastructure. If you don’t have the documentation for legally sanctioned sewage infrastructure you are plain guilty of doing wrong. By bribing the local corporator or MLA, to let you discharge your domestic sewage into SWD – thereby to the source of safe drinking water you are being a plain criminal. No it is not the politician or corporator or corrupt bureaucrat who is at fault; nor is he / she the criminal. It is the one who is bribing – who is the criminal, because the one who is paying the bribe wants to do it without dutifully submitting necessary documentation. I have heard justifications like “I don’t have documentation”, or “I am paying speed money”, “I live in an illegal residential layout” only means you are conniving to be even more corrupt than the ones you accuse of corruption.

Equally guilty is the callous citizen who throws cigarette butts, bank slips paper waste, or other litter on the roads and pavements. Coffee cups, use and throw plastic litter are all clogging the SWDs. Who will clean up what you throw so disdainfully? Pourakarmikas sweep the roads indeed with two broomsticks, facing the risk of injury to their forearms. But your callousness in discarding waste on roads is not covered by tax revenue. Nor do you pay for their injury insurance. If you are throwing garbage on the road or are guilty of not segregating wastes and thereby reducing wastes, you are being and indulging in criminal deeds. 

I am aware that such caustic copy will not make much of a difference. Unfortunate corollary: it is when such a criminal’s family member suffers from the consequences of polluting safe drinking water that one will hopefully realise their mistakes. Till then their brethren have to suffer them, and their crimes on public safety.

On a constructive note though Smart City Governors can think of out of the box suggestions like creating a reservoir only with SWDs or dedicated Rain water harvested infrastructure to collect rain water and redistribute it as per needs.