Mapping the Maharashtra floods https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/09/13/2021/11/15/neglect-apathy-and-a-destructive-train-route-why-maharashtras-villages-flood-every-year Prateek Goyal & Tanishka Sodhi 15 Nov, 2021
Neglect, apathy, and a destructive train route: Why Maharashtra's villages flood every year. Mahad taluka suffered the worst floods in 16 years in July. But why do nightmarish floods ruin these regions every year?
Locals in Mahad taluka of Maharashtra’s Raigad district would perhaps agree that Konkan Railway has changed their lives, but in a very different way. The environmental impact of this project has been devastating for the region. “The Konkan Railway is 85 percent responsible for the floods,” said Prakash Pol, who retired last year after working as a junior engineer in the Raigad’s irrigation department for 25 years.
Experts agree that Konkan Railway’s decision to build a bridge at Dasgaon village has made Mahad vulnerable to floods and Pol has the statistics to prove this. In 1989, when there was heavy flooding following 732 millimetres rainfall in Mahabaleshwar, water levels in Mahad rose to 8.25 metres above sea level. In 1994, a year after the Konkan Railway was constructed, there was 400 mm of rain in Mahabaleshwar and water levels rose to 8.40 metres above sea level in Mahad. In 2005, Mahabaleshwar got 500 mm of rain and the water level in Mahad rose to 9.75 metres. In 2021, 596 mm of rain in Mahabaleshwar led to the water level in Mahad to rise to 11.75 metres.
As with the Konkan Railway, environmentalists and local activists have raised objections about the Mumbai-Goa highway, but these efforts have had little impact. It seems the Indian government abides by the notion that environmental damage is an inevitable and necessary price to pay for development. In the case of the Konkan Railway, one of the costs of this prestigious infrastructural project has been the increasing intensity of floods and landslides in Mahad taluka.