Bengaluru floods: What Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw suggests

Biotechnology industry veteran Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has suggested penalising city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for giving permissions leading to encroachments of stormwater drains (SWDs) that resulted in the recent floods.

The executive chairperson of Bengaluru-headquartered biopharmaceuticals company Biocon said the anti-encroachment drive launched by the BMMP this week to clear illegal structures sitting on SWDs, is a long overdue measure to address water logging, which caused unprecedented havoc in parts of Bengaluru two weeks ago.

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“The question that begs to be answered is whether there will be a parallel investigation into how the BBMP and BDA gave permissions in the first place”, she said.

“Moreover, we need to go beyond knee-jerk quick fixes and find holistic long-term solutions. For example, razing buildings will impact helpless and innocent homeowners. Why not penalise developers and BDA/BBMP and use that to create proper water canals”, Mazumdar-Shaw said.

Meanwhile, the BBMP continued its anti-encroachment drive for the fourth day on Thursday, deploying earth-movers to raze illegal structures.

Two days of heavy rains recently battered parts of Bengaluru, particularly the information technology corridor and arterial roads, with several localities inundated. According to BBMP sources, the encroachers include some tech parks, IT companies, hospitals, educational institutions and apartment complexes.

(With Agency inputs)