Directions: In the following passage, some words have been left out and a word has been emboldened beside each blank. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the given alternatives.

The recent floods in Bengaluru have paralyzed the city’s tech spine. The point has been driven home with viral images of some of the city’s most influential people being ___(A)___ (salvaged) by tractors and lavish villas underwater. Unfortunately, pictures of ___(B)___ (pernicious) weather phenomena bringing a city to its knees are becoming increasingly common in India, with the urban authorities concerned finding themselves ___(C)___ (grievously) unprepared every time a new disaster hits. Similar scenes have played out in Delhi (2013, 2021), Mumbai (2005, 2017), Chennai (2015, 2021), and Hyderabad (2020) leaving behind extensive losses to property and life. In terms of damages, Mumbai reportedly lost ₹14,000 crores between 2005 and 2015 while the figure for Chennai was an estimated ₹15,000 crore in 2015 alone. Added to this are the social and human costs, which almost always disproportionately affect the poorer sections of society as they tend to live in the more environmentally vulnerable areas. Even in the case of Bengaluru, while the media primarily focused on the disruption caused to the Information Technology industry, several informal settlements were also destroyed. These events are usually met with a slew of knee-jerk reactions and politically motivated accusations. More often than not, river/drain cleanup measures, anti-encroachment drives, and stormwater network projects are proposed by the administrators concerned to ___(D)___ (placate) the public and the media. A ₹900 crore project was announced in November 2021 by the Karnataka government after flooding in Bengaluru last year. Now, after the recent floods, the municipality has ordered an anti-encroachment drive. While these measures are not unhelpful, they are at best ___(E)___ (gradational) solutions to systemic problems stemming from a lack of climate consciousness in the planning process. Unfortunately, the ___(F)___ (paucity) of climate mitigation measures in urban planning and the uncontrolled urban sprawl only make the next calamity more likely.