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Goods worth Rs 500cr lost in Ahmedabad due to floods -- Gujarat rain toll touches 65

Our Bureau,

AHMEDABAD, July 16.

THE heavy rainfall that lashed Ahmedabad, the commercial capital of Gujarat, during the last three days that started with a record three-hour downpour on Thursday morning has left behind very heavy damage to the trade and commercial circles in the city. While 10 lives have been lost in the city, taking the toll in the State to 65, the major damage in terms of commodity has occurred from destruction of merchandise stored in the basements of various buildings across the city.

It will still be a few more days before a clear picture about the actual loss emerge as efforts are still on to clear the shops and godowns of accumulated water. However, preliminary estimates indicate that the damages to various merchandise stocked in t he city will not be less than Rs 500 crores.

Leading the list of the major casualties are textiles and foodgrains stored in the basement area more often than not allotted for parking vehicles, converted into godown space.

There are not less than 10,000 shops that are situated in the basement area of both commercial and residential buildings, a mix of high-rise and low-rise structures. Of this, not less than half are used as godown space for foodgrains. While the foodgrain s lead the numbers in the godowns flooded during the last three days, it is understood that maximum damage in value in the case of textile shops which had already started the pre-Diwali sales.

However, the trade and commercial circles, put the losses suffered by them at Rs 10,000 crores. This was in sharp variance from the estimates put out by the officials of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and the Ahmedabad Urban Development Author ity (AUDA), at Rs. 300 crores. Under fire from almost all quarters for the unplanned growth of the city which caused the catastrophe, they point out that since there was no damage to assets and property, the loss to merchandise could be only about Rs. 30 0 crores, a substantial part of which would be set off by the insurance companies.

While textiles and foodgrains lead the list of merchandise lost in the rains, electronic goods also seem to have suffered the heavy damages because of the flooding of the shops and basement godowns almost all over the city. Almost every shop and godown i n the huge New Cloth Market in Raipur, the rows of retail textile shops in Dhalgarwad and Ratanpole, the foodgrains and spices wholesale market in Madhupura and even the fashionable jewellery, restaurants and cyber cafes and the retail electronics and ot her shops and cellar godowns in the upmarket C. G. Road areas have been completely flooded and badly damaged in the rains.

Many of the banks in both the labour-dominated eastern and the well-off western parts of the city were flooded causing panic among the people as almost all branches have their lockers located in the basement cellars. The losses suffered by individuals du e to flooding of the lockers may never be known.

The flooding of the city roads have raised the question of advisability of having basement godowns which is the most common fashion in a city like Ahmedabad where rains is a scarce commodity. In many posh buildings, the basement parking lots have been co nverted into godowns, mostly in connivance with the officials concerned.

The rainfall, a record three-hour downpour on Thursday morning, the worst ever since 1927, has left 10 people dead in the city while the toll in the State in the current rains and floods has gone up to 65. The state and the city authorities are now engag ed in taking preventive measures to check outbreak of an epidemic, a common occurrence after such water-logging.

But ironically, while Ahmedabad is reeling under floods, at least 20 talukas of the 226 talukas in the state, particularly Bhavnagar and Amreli districts in the Saurashtra region, are still looking at the sky waiting for rains to undertake sowing operati ons. Most other parts of the State thankfully are out of the nightmarish drought having received an average of 372 m.m. of rainfall till date, nearly 50 per cent of the season's average rainfall.