National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) held a ‘National Seminar on Urban Flood Mitigation’ today at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, to discuss implementation of the Finance Commission’s recommendations on urban flood management.  

The seminar saw participation from NDMA; CDRI; Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs; Municipal Commissioner/SDMA officials of Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune; Water Strategy and Development at City of Rotterdam; Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA); and institutions such as IIT, Mumbai, IIT, Delhi, IISc, NRSC, HM_RAP, IMD and others. NDMA had taken the initiative of bringing the participants together to discuss urban flood preparedness and various mitigation solutions; the underlying notion being that while each city must develop its own programme, it should be guided by a national strategy for dealing with urban floods. 

Increasing intensity of urban floods have begun to pose a new challenge, especially for larger cities, as they disrupt civic life and critical services. The seminar thus focused on the challenges and solutions for urban flood risk in the inland and coastal cities of India. Representatives from each city presented the challenges faced, the measures implemented, and the support required for mitigating the flood risks. These challenges and issues were deliberated upon by experts with hands-on experience of working on urban flood mitigation in these cities. The international case studies that were discussed at the seminar will in future, support in collating the best practices that could be potentially implemented/ adapted by the cities and states. The stakeholder consultation recommended short-term and long-term measures to address urban flood risk management. 

The key outcome from this seminar will be the development of the Roadmap for National Framework for Urban Flood Risk in India.