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Vast numbers of swathes of Mumbai's beches have already been destroyed to rising seas.
Now shanty dwellers suffers from fear for homesless and critics said India’s largest metropolis like other world mega-cities is not doing enough to hold back the waves.
During the monsoon, near-daily storms regularly flood Dharavi, one of Asia’s biggest slums and home to some of the coastal city’s most vulnerable residents.
“The situation has been getting worse every year, with our homes knee-deep in water,” Venkatesh Nadar, 38, who has lived in the shanty settlement his entire life, told AFP.
Nadar said, “It’s dangerous and worrying for our children’s future, and leaves every family living here at God’s mercy,” he said.
If a terrible UN prediction saying that the sea may increase by one meter (three feet) in the century up to 2100 due to global warming comes true.
An academic report suggested that, a quarter of Mumbai could be affected due to rising sea level.
In 2017, a report by US experts, "Even a 20-centimeter (eight-inch) rise would more than double the frequency of flooding in tropical zones such as the Mumbai coast."
Mumbai, which British colonial rulers formed by joining seven small islands, is already vulnerable to floods because so much of it is below the high-tide line.
A study found by the Watchdog Foundation activist group, "the shore has retreated by more than 20 meters (yards) at some Mumbai beaches over the past 15 years."
Hundreds have died and billions of dollars of damage caused in floods over the past two decades, study reads.
Floodwaters already overwhelm Mumbai’s decrepit drainage system every monsoon, it added.
The Maharashtra state government’s response has concentrated on building 20 sea walls including four off Mumbai and a huge mangrove planting campaign along the state’s 720-kilometer (450-mile) coast.
Offshore reefs and beach restoration plans are also being considered.
Mangroves act as sponges to soak up excess rain and stormwater, and hundreds of thousands of saline-resistant trees and shrubs have been planted in a bid to create tropical tidal forests that act as a buffer against sea surges.
“Mangroves are the first line of defense against flooding and we don’t have any other options,” Patil told AFP at the Airoli mangrove plantation on Mumbai’s fringe.
“Even a boundary wall cannot protect the city as much as mangroves.”
Maharashtra authorities have given mangroves protected status, and have powers to stop development on wetlands, remove slums and build walls.
Patil said there are now more than 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of mangroves after boosting cover in the state by 82 percent between 2015 and 2017.
However, environmentalists said the action is a half-hearted response.
"Mangroves are important, the loss of natural drainage systems such as rivers and creeks was also crucial, said activist Nandkumar Pawar."
Climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology believed that the rising frequency of flooding in the mega-city calls for extra defenses as well as a warning system to protect the growing population.
“We need to have a long-term vision,” Koll told AFP. Amid all the criticism, Maharashtra Maritime Board deputy director Jitendra Raisinghani said hard-pressed state authorities were working on a coastal management plan.
“We are doing the best as per our capacity and resources,” he said.
“There is never enough and you can do more.” Stalin Dayanand, an outspoken activist with the Vanashakti environmental group, said there had to be more natural defenses.
“We are using measures which will increase conflict with nature by relying on civil engineering solutions like building walls,” he said, adding that more deaths and damage were inevitable.
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