THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala recently faced the worst floods in close to a century, that left hundreds of people dead, displaced over a million, and caused unprecedented loss of property worth billions of rupees in less than a fortnight. Though excessive rains filled the dams, experts blamed poor water flow management from the reservoirs for the inundation of the coastal state and many parts of souther India.
Water experts believe that the intensity of Kerala floods could have been reduced if the water from 35 big dams in Kerala was released much earlier. Kerala blamed neighbouring Tamil Nadu for the floods in the Supreme Court saying the gates of Mullaperiyar dam were suddenly opened without any warning, a claim denied by Tamil Nadu government. The disaster poses a bigger question regarding flood management in India considering that around 15 per cent of India's land mass is prone to floods, and an average of 1,548 people lose their lives and around eight million hectares get affected every year. The 5,254 dams in India are an integral part of flood management, apart from storing water for irrigation and generating power.
A 2017 CAG report submitted in the Parliament said there is emergency action plan for only seven per cent of these dams. Meanwhile, there is none for the 61 in Kerala. The CAG report said, “Flood forecasting data was used in the formulation of flood forecast only after comparing the telemetry data with manually observed data; and in the case of mismatch between the two sets of data, manual data was adopted.”
Auditor of the report also said that frequent check of dams before and after monsoon happened in only two- Bihar and Odisha, of the 17 states in recent years. Secretary in the ministry of earth sciences, Madhavan Nair Rajeevan admitted earlier this year that there was poor flood management system in India. He said, “As per my understanding, no big reservoir has a decision support system. So we don't know when to open gates and how to open them... There is a common perception that in India most of the flood management systems are not supported by science. I am very sure we don't have a decision support system and we need it.”
