Aaditya Thackeray: Climate change is a real thing, mitigation plan needed

Normal life was disrupted in Mumbai due to severe waterlogging following heavy rainfall. On Wednesday, road traffic was affected in several areas including Mumbai Central Junction, Worli Sea Face and Bhendi Bazar. Local train services in Mumbai on Wednesday were affected due to heavy rainfall. 

Maharashtra environment minister Aaditya Thackeray on Wednesday said climate change has become a real thing and stressed on undertaking mitigation measures as part of a larger action plan to deal with the phenomenon.

In a series of tweets, Thackeray said parts of Mumbai have received over 83 percent of the annual normal September rainfall in less than 12 hours.

He wrote,"Visited the BMC HQ today to take stock of the situation after the torrential rains that lashed the city over the last night. 
• Parts of Mumbai have received over 83% of the annual normal September rainfall in less than 12 hours. 
• flood water pumped out= 1 Tulsi lake"

"Extreme weather events now aren’t rare anymore. Climate change is a real thing. We’ve seen record break temperatures, rainfall, storms, droughts and floods in our country over the past few years. We need to act on climate change mitigation and action as a larger action plan," wrote the minister.

"The 2005 cloud burst resulted in the BRIMSTOWAD project of pumping stations and increasing storm water drain capacity to 50mm/ hour. This brings back our coastal city back to normal within a few hours of extreme rainfall. Today we pumped out a volume equal to Tulsi lake," he tweeted.

"However, 15 years on, with more climate change and increasing extreme weather events, and as we await final clearances on Mahul and Mogra Nallah pumping stations, we have begun to look at creating underground flood control tanks and rain water percolation systems," he wrote on the micro- blogging site.

The minister said hehad requested civic officials to work actively and expeditiously on underground flood control tanks as extreme rainfall events increase every year, breaking records of the past few decades.

The Brihanmumbai Storm Water Disposal (BRIMSTOWAD) project was started after the 2005 deluge to overhaul Mumbais decades-old drains.

Visited the @mybmc HQ today to take stock of the situation after the torrential rains that lashed the city over the last night.
• Parts of Mumbai have received over 83% of the annual normal September rainfall in less than 12 hours.
• flood water pumped out= 1 Tulsi lake pic.twitter.com/9HbDCv06MA

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) September 23, 2020

The 2005 cloud burst resulted in the BRIMSTOWAD project of pumping stations and increasing storm water drain capacity to 50mm/ hour. This brings back our coastal city back to normal within a few hours of extreme rainfall. Today we pumped out a volume equal to Tulsi lake (3/n)

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) September 23, 2020

I have requested the officials at @mybmc to work actively and expeditiously on the underground flood control tanks, as the extreme rainfall events increase every year, breaking the records of the past few decades.

— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) September 23, 2020