 The streets, residential areas and roads of Chennai are flooded repeatedly even for moderate rainfall. In November this year, the city witnessed severe water inundation, thrice during the northeast monsoon. The stagnation continued for days even after the rain stopped. The inundation sparked off a debate on who is responsible for the current situation as well. A news click spoke to former professor of Madras Institute of Development Studies S. Janagarajan regarding this. Actually speaking I would not call it a flood. This is not a flood actually. Because what you see today in 2021 in Chennai is more water inundation and that is also more localized. So wherever you see a low laying area you find this kind of water inundation and there are lots of issues and the problems and factors which can be attributed to this kind of water inundation. So basically I would not call it a flood. This is not a flood. I mean this kind of rainfall I mean is a manageable rainfall. Something like a 250 millimeters of rainfall in 24 hours is manageable if your drainage system is in good order. But it only reflects that our drainage system and whatever you know macro drains that you have, river systems that you have and the stormwater drains that you have they are in good shape. I think this sort of rainfall should have been taken care of. But it only means that our drainage system is in a very bad shape, pathetic condition. One of the main reasons why city today is experiencing this kind of water inundation and people are in total I mean misery. Particularly if you go to the North Madras, if you look at in particular the popular people who live in slums, they are in an extremely pathetic condition in a very, very bad shape and they are not able to come out of their homes, their streets are flooded and not able to commute and even you know hop on to the transport and look for a transport or hop on to the bus, come in many issues and concerns and I think this is going to become more significant to come. Mainly because the population density in the city, Chennai city is increasing year by year. If you look at the data for the past 15-20 years you would see how rapidly the population density in Chennai has gone up. For instance in 2011, as per the 2011 census 26,000 people lived in Chennai per square kilometre. Now we are in 2021 in the last 10 years, I am sure the population density would have gone up tremendously. It may be now something like 33,000 or 34,000 per square kilometre which only means that the urban space, the available urban spaces shrunk tremendously which means that more people living in the same area and density has gone up which means the urban space has come down. That is really resulting in lack of space, lack of drainage space for draining water. It also means that the per capita drainage space in Chennai city is coming down rapidly. You have to have certain level of drainage space in any city. If there is no space for drainage of water, naturally the water will get inundated because you got homes, you got the compound walls, you are obstructed all waterways and water flows and streams. Naturally it gets obstructed and you will see all the major drains in the city have been obstructed, disconnected and are in a pathetic condition or clogged heavily. So water doesn't flow. This is the case of all these. There are 16 major drains in the city. All these 16 major drains and something like 30 to 35 micro drains, all of them are in a bad shape or disconnected completely and water doesn't flow. That's the reason. This is more sort of unscientific land use policy, unscientific urban land use policy, unscientific urban expansion policy, unscientific urban development policy, unscientific or unregulated urban development policy. You have to be more scientific. For instance, when you expand the city, it used to be something like 174 square kilometers, that was Chennai city. Today it is 26 square kilometers and it is going to go up in the years to come and again Chennai metropolitan area today is 1,190 square kilometers. It is going to be extended to 8,800 square kilometers. So when you expand the city or when you expand the metropolitan area, you have to adapt certain standards. The issue is one of what are the principles of your master plans? What are the bottom line principles that you are adopting for urban expansion or the city development? So this is unclear to me. All that you are now interested in is build up your residential area, build up your market commercial area, build up your industrial area, acquire land for construction of roads and for transportation and acquire land for the institutions for building government buildings and so on and so forth. But have you ever thought of acquiring land or reserving land for ecosystem use for protective environment? That is something unfortunate that we did not do. Only if you follow this principle of yes, you also need land for ecosystem needs. You also need land for environmental, protecting environmental conditions and for environmental needs. And you also have to have a policy of protecting for instance, you know, the water bodies. And if you don't have that, and unfortunately in the absence of all these, you are going to suffer. That's what exactly has happened in the past several decades. Now, at least now I am asking a question. Have you learned any lesson from the past mistakes, past blunders of master plan one and master plan two? Master plan is going to end up in the 2024. But what have we done so far? What are the blunders that we committed? Have you learned any lessons so that you can correct yourself in master plan three? So this is very fundamental. If you do not really look back, if you don't have a rethink on your master plans and Andrew's policy, you are bound to suffer. People will definitely get into difficulties. People will definitely suffer in the city of Chennai.