It is time for this column’s annual monsoon watch. What is new, one might ask, considering that the same story gets repeated year after year, in terms of exposing the unpreparedness of the administration, the civic woes it brings along, the response mechanism and a staunch refusal to learn lessons from past episodes. A major change this year is that for the first time in several decades, the government in power does not have a single representative in the body responsible for the civic administration of the city. These pages have already warned about the ramifications of such an alignment and the games of one-upmanship between the two (see MM, May 16-31, 2026 and MM, June 1-15, 2026) which would potentially leave civic administration in the lurch.
At the time of writing, the Northeast monsoon has just made a terrific start for the season, with widespread rainfall across the State. It has marked its arrival over our city with a torrential spell of rainfall on the night of 17th October and has subsequently, in fits and starts, kept the scorecard ticking. While it is heartening to see that prolonged waterlogging episodes have been minimal and the administration has been working actively round the clock to ensure life is not thrown out of gear, the tension simmering between the government and the corporation is there for all to see, with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor accusing the government of delay in starting works connected with monsoon preparedness as compared to earlier years. The government on the other hand has responded stating that its predecessor had left nearly 40 per cent of the stormwater drain work unfinished, which was now being completed.
The relations between the two bodies, which was never on great terms to begin with, has gone even more downhill over this short period. The corporation has consistently flagged delays in release of funding and project approvals, while the government launched a crackdown on corruption in the civic body in June, which resulted in suspension of six officials. Such has been the depths of the relationship that it even brought about an unlikely bonhomie (however temporary) between the two Dravidian majors on the floor of the corporation, when debating on the state of affairs. Our corporation’s poor financial state has also not helped matters, as several new infrastructure projects have been deferred and tenders cancelled to help ease pressure on its finances. The tiff between the corporations and the government has pervaded across the state, with walkouts being reported in places such as Trichy. Newspaper reports point to even routine works such as streetlight maintenance and road repair being impacted on account of the standoff.
While people may be willing to cut some slack on the grounds that the new government is still trying to find its feet, it must realise that it has to soon come out of what is being seen as an increasingly adversarial approach, whatever be the validations it may come up with. There are matters that must go beyond political affiliations, and civic governance squarely falls under this category. With a fairly lacklustre Southwest monsoon season, great hopes have been pinned on the Northeast monsoon to provide some sort of respectability to the state’s annual rainfall scorecard. With the Super El Nino adding a dash of unpredictability to the entire scenario, the chances of nasty surprises cannot be entirely ruled out, as some forecasters have warned. At such an important juncture, it is essential that every level of the administrative setup, right from the government to the councillors at the ground level is on the same page irrespective of the political identity. Differences at the top cannot be allowed to percolate to the lower levels and make the public unwilling pawns in the power games.