THIS incident cannot be and should not be dismissed just as sad news. It needs to be looked at from the point of view of failed urban design in general, a malady which the entire urban India is suffering from. The question is not of losing one life and having saved six other persons, but of why urban planners have not been able to create designs that serve their purpose fully. The larger Indian society will have to find an effective answer to this issue of failed urban design in general. Just a few months ago in rainy season, many Indian cities, including metropolises like Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, were seen suffering from flooding of their urban spaces even with a little more than normal rains. Newspapers, television and radio channels all over the country reported countless incidents of flooding of urban spaces during the rainy season time and again, recording loss of precious human life and property and sense of dignity of urban living, Yet, it must be recorded with sadness and frustration that modern urban planners are yet to find an effective solution to the problem. Or, most probably, they have yet not found time and inclination to look for solutions, thanks to the overall apathy and insensitivity to such issues that generally underlines the planning process.

This is not over-generalisation. This is an observation based on the nationwide experience of flooding of urban spaces in rainy season year after year. In countless cases, the flooding remains for days on end -- obviously because there is no system by which to allow the accumulated water to ease out through well-planned channels of discharge.

If flooding of urban spaces is one problem, over-crowding of public spaces and roads is another, for which, too, the planners have not been able to find an effective answer. This is the story whose chapters unfold all over the country.

There are reasons to suspect that the planners are generally not interested in seeking lasting solutions to such problems of design-failure. The reason may be simple -- that they do not want to get into the hassles of having to demolish and re-do their own designs to sort out problem areas. This, again, is not an over-generalisation. But one reaches such a conclusion only when one sees the problem existing in countless urban centres across the country and persisting doggedly without any solution. It has also been found that most planners only describe the problem, but do not seem interested in seeking a lasting solution. That is the reason many Bhanurekhas are found dying either out of drowning or out of other accidents that occur in frightening regularity in the entire country. The numbers at present may not be big, but the implications are far more serious than we may think.

Failed design of urban structures and facilities, thus, is a national experience. And though there is a lot of talk about disaster management, the planners appear not to have thought the failed urban design as a point of disaster. Possibly, the issue may be related to definition of what constitutes a disaster. Probably, the issue may be related to an absence of sense of urgency which is so necessary for better and flawless urban planning. Here, the effort is not to pick up just one incident and blast urban planners and designers and managers. The effort is to bring to fore the fact that the problem of urban flooding and clogging of traffic or over-crowding of urban spaces has become so problematic that it needs an immediate addressing seeking effective solutions.

In seminars and meetings of urban planners and designers, need is often discussed to seek a redefinition of what is good urban design. However, in the current condition, this thought has not gone beyond the academic discourse. For, as cities are bursting at seams, the planners indulge in hasty handling of chaotic conditions by hectic pace of construction of urban structures (that are often so inadequate to accommodate growing pressure of urbanisation on the system). Yet, despite the great advancement of science and technology, at least Indian urban planners and designers have not been able to find solutions to rectifying the flaws in urban design -- of roads, bridges, underpasses, fly-overs ... ! Who should be held responsible for this massive, nationwide failure? But more than blaming, we should decide who should be responsible for rectification of the failed urban planning and design. This is the actual issue at hand.