Flood control: a few suggestions
Arpan Dutta
Assam has been facing acute flood problem since a few decades or so. It let
loose a reign of destruction during the summer and incurs heavy loss to the
State every year. There has been wide scale loss of lives and property,
agriculture, pisciculture, cattle farms, public property and bio-diversity, by
and large. Admittedly, the loss was less till the fifties as the flowing
condition of the rivers was better than today. Similarly, the population and
property were also less and as such quantum of loss was also less in comparison
to the present day. Again, the condition of embankments was much stronger than
today to protect from flood. Still, the loss of property was Rs 15.89 crore in
1954 which increased to Rs 24.62 crore in 1972. Now, the flood of 2007 (upto
August,07, incurred a loss of more than one thousand crores. This is quite a
high blow for a poor State like Assam.
Among the significant floods, the one in 2004 marked a colossal devastation,
the idea of which can be gathered from the report given by the then Revenue
Minister Gautam Roy in the floor of the Assembly that year. According to the
report, the loss of human lives was 497 and the damage to the cropped area was
1330783.53 hectares. The loss of cattle heads was estimated to be 65,967.
Against 2004, of course, this year the loss of lives may be less (39 upto
August), but the damage and destructions are not less. As reported by the
present Revenue Minister Dr Bhumidhar Barman in the last Assembly session, out
of total population of 2.66 crores in the State the flood affected 67.48 lakh
covering 5946 villages in 26 districts of the State. The affected crop-area was
3.55 lakh hectares. The flood damaged 10,091 houses, 773 PWD roads, 66
semi-permanent wooden bridges on the road breached at 54 places covering a
total length of 1256 metres. He also stated that the flood breached about
1.5 km of NH 52 at 3 to 4 places and submerged the National High way 36, 37,
39, 44, 52, 54, 152 and 154 at many places. In addition to these, there was
another wave of flood that inundated vast areas of Barpeta, Baska and Chirang
districts during the last part of August. The flood damaged crops, fisheries,
cattle and poultry farms, besides households and PWD roads.
As a matter of fact the reasons behind the causes of floods are not unknown to
the public as well as the government, more particularly to the State
government. The reasons could be summarised as (i) inability of taking load
of water by the rivers owing to gradual increase of silt deposition in river
beds, (ii) unsuitability of embankments for checking of inflow of water, (iii)
excessive rainfall in the hilly regions, (iv) sudden release of plenty of water
in upstream side of a few rivers from hydro-electric power projects, etc.
We know that there are two valleys that originated due to continuous geomorphic
processes throughout the long period of weathering and erosion made by the two
rivers, the Brahmaputra and the Barak along with their tributaries. The
Brahmaputra is not only the biggest river in India, but also regarded as one of
the biggest rivers in the world. The Brahmaputra having a catchment area of
70638 sq km flows within the territory of Assam, covering a length of 720 km.
The river meets on its way over 35 tributaries. The width of its valley between
the foothills is about 80 to 90 km, out of which river water covers a width of
6 to 8 km in most of the places, particularly in summer. On the other hand, the
Barak river having a length of 225 km flows through the district of Cachar
(old) and meets over seven tributaries in her path. Its catchment area is 7084
sq km. And, as a whole, the riverine areas of the above two valleys occupy 27
per cent of the total area of the State.
As regard rainfall, our State receives a good amount of it with a few
exceptions like that of 2006. In average the State receives 178 to 300 cm of
rainfall. The peculiarity of rainfall is that it does not precipitate uniformly
throughout the summer season but falls sometime abundantly that too within a
short period. This excess water generally put heavy load towards the river and
then the river fails to carry the silt and debris mixed water which ultimately
bring about flood ignoring the weak embankments. Notedly, our embankments are
quite old and too weak to resist water pressure for which flooding takes place.
Now, in addition to these factors, another factor is also being considered as
responsible for flooding, which is related to hydro-electric power generation.
In Assam, basically two cases of flooding, one each in Nagaon (old) and Barpeta
(old) districts in 2004 and 2007 are claimed to be related to sudden release of
reservoir water, kept in upstream of certain
rivers. Out of them one is from Kopili reservoir at North Cachar Hills
district, Assam and the other is Kurushi reservoir of Bhutan.
Under these circumstances it is highly necessary to have a multidisciplinary
effort for combating flood in the State. In this regard, priority has to be
given on dredging of silt, atleast from these rivers, from the beginning
(foothills) to ending (sea shore). Simultaneously, necessary steps pertaining
to afforestation and soil conservation in the catchment areas have to be taken
in such a way that there will be no scope of occurrence of siltation in the
rivers. Secondly, heavy guard walls atleast on both the sides of the
Brahmaputra should be erected so that the effect of erosion could be minimised.
We should keep in mind that making and strengthening of embankments cannot
solve the flood problem permanently, rather they will be purely, temporary
measures through which no one could expect good benefit excepting wastage of
funds. Moreover, such measures will totally fail to safeguard the bank erosion.
The importance of guard walls is that they will reduce the width of the
river and as such quite a vast area would be recovered from the grab of the
river. Further, the removed silt could also be utilised for transforming the
barren wet land to promising areas for agricultural and allied uses by filling
the same.
Undoubtedly, there will be needed a huge fund to fulfil the suggestions, yet to
check the suffering and wastage of money every year, there will be no way out
except to adhere to these measures. On the whole, the governments should put
stress on taking time-bound effective measures in a planned way to mitigate the
miseries of flood and upgrade the economic and social status of the people of
Assam.
(The Assam Tribune,04.10.2007)
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