Introduction
Following the
enactment of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, (DM Act, 2005) the Government
of India (GOI) constituted the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) as the apex body for Disaster
Management (DM) in India with the mandate, inter alia, for laying down
policies and guidelines on DM. At the national level, there is to be a paradigm
shift from the erstwhile reliefcentric and post-event syndrome to pro-active prevention-, mitigation- and
preparedness-driven DM. These efforts will conserve developmental gains and also minimise loss of lives, livelihood systems and property.
Vulnerability
to Floods
Floods have
been a recurrent phenomenon in India and cause huge losses to lives, properties,
livelihood systems, infrastructure and public utilities. India’s high risk and
vulnerability is highlighted by the fact that 400 lakh hectares out of a geographical area of 3290 lakh hectares
is prone to floods. On an average every year, 75 lakh hectares of land is affected, 1600 lives are lost and the
damage caused to crops, houses and public utilities is Rs. 1805 crores due to
floods. The maximum number of lives (11,316) were lost in the year
1977. The frequency of major floods
is more than once in five years. Floods have also occurred in areas,
which were earlier not considered flood prone. Eighty per cent of the precipitation takes place in the monsoon
months from June to September. The rivers bring heavy sediment load from the catchments. These, coupled with
inadequate carrying capacity
of the rivers are responsible for causing floods, drainage congestion and
erosion of river-banks. Cyclones,
cyclonic circulations and cloud bursts cause flash floods and lead to
huge losses. The fact that some of the rivers causing damage in India originate
in neighboring countries, adds another complex dimension to the problem.
Urban Flooding
Flooding in
the cities and the towns is a recent
phenomenon caused by increasing
incidence of heavy rainfall in a short period of time, indiscriminate encroachment of waterways,
inadequate capacity of drains and
lack of maintenance of the drainage infrastructure.
Action Plans
at Various Levels
All key
agencies, including the central
ministries, and departments,
state governments, local bodies including Panchayati Raj Institutions
(PRIs), and Urban Local Bodies
(ULBs) like metropolitan development authorities, municipal corporations,
municipal councils and district authorities will develop detailed FMPs based on these Guidelines.
State governments and local authorities will play an important role in the
formulation and effective implementation of such action plans. The communities
and other stakeholders will play an important part in ensuring compliance to
the regulations and their effective enforcement. The State Disaster Management
Authorities (SDMAs) will be responsible for reviewing and monitoring the
implementation of the action plans at the state-level.
The Objectives
of the Guidelines
These
Guidelines rest on the following objectives aimed at increasing the efficacy of
the FMPs, which will be prepared at various levels:
1.
Shifting the focus to preparedness by
implementing, in a time-bound manner, an optimal combination of technoeconomically viable, socially
acceptable and eco-friendly structural and nonstructural measures of
FM.
2.
Ensuring regular
monitoring of the effectiveness and sustainability of various structures
and taking appropriate measures for their restoration and strengthening.
3.
Continuous modernisation
of flood forecasting, early warning and decision support systems.
4.
Ensuring the incorporation of flood resistant features in the design
and construction of new structures in the flood prone areas.
5.
Drawing up time-bound
plans for the flood proofing of strategic and public utility structures
in flood prone areas.
6.
Improving the awareness and preparedness of all stakeholders in the flood
prone areas.
7.
Introducing appropriate capacity development interventions for effective FM
(including education, training, capacity building, research and development,
and documentation.)
8.
Improving the compliance regime through appropriate mechanisms.
9.
Strengthening the emergency response capabilities.
Earlier
Initiatives of the Government of India
Following the
unprecedented floods of 1954, the then Union Minister for Planning, Irrigation
and Power placed before Parliament on 3 September 1954, the statements on
floods which set the objective of reducing the menace of floods. Later on, in a
subsequent statement in Parliament on 27 July 1956, the emphasis was laid on
doing all that was possible to contain floods in the country. Since then the
government has taken various initiatives and set up a number of committees to
study the problem and recommend several remedial measures. The most important
ones are the High Level Committee on
Floods (1957), the Ministers Committee on Flood Control (1964), the Rashtriya
Barh Ayog (1980) and Task Force on Flood Management/Erosion Control (2004).
Institutional
Framework
As per the
constitutional provisions, FM is a
state subject and as such the primary responsibility for flood
management lies with the states. The central government has taken various
initiatives and set up a number of organisations dealing with the floods. The
most notable one is the enactment of the National Disaster Management Act,
December 2005 and setting up of the NDMA, which has been assigned to deal with
all types of disasters including the floods.
The state
governments are to set up State
Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs) and State Executive Committees
(SECs) to perform similar functions at the state level. These are in addition
to existing organisations dealing with the floods in the states. There is a
need to set up a central organisation to lay down policy and implement FM
measures in consultation with the states and other stakeholders as floods are
not confined to one state and flooding in one state leads to flooding in
adjoining states. Accordingly, it has been proposed to set up River Basin Organisations to
deal with the management of water resources at river basin level. It is also
proposed to set up a National Flood
Management Institute (NFMI) at an appropriate location in one of the
flood prone states, to impart training to engineers, administrators, personnel
of the police departments, Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Community
Based Orgnisations (CBOs) etc.
Activities for
Minimising Flood Risk and Losses
The activities
proposed to be undertaken aim at minimising the flood risk and losses and are
to be implemented in three phases in addition to recurring activities.
Phase-I
These
activities include identification and marking of flood prone areas on maps, preparation of close
contour and flood vulnerability maps, formulating plans for expansion and
modernisation of flood forecasting and warning
systems, identification of priority
flood protection and drainage improvement works, identification of reservoirs for review and modification
of operation manuals and rule curves and undertaking special studies on
problems of river erosion.
These will be initiated immediately and efforts will be made to complete them
in a phased manner with the last of these activities scheduled for completion
by January 2010.
Phase-II
These include
implementation of the schemes for expansion and modernisation of the flood
forecasting and warning network, execution of flood protection and drainage
improvement schemes, modification and adoption of revised reservoir operation
manuals, enactment and enforcement of flood
plain zoning regulations and planning and preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for
storage reservoirs and implementation of the schemes for real-time
collection of hydrometeorological
data on rivers in Nepal, Bhutan and China. These activities, which aim
at implementation of FMPs, will commence immediately after the completion of
the link activities of Phase-I and will be completed by March 2012.
Phase-III
Implementation
of activities, which include construction of dams and catchment area treatment (CAT) works in India as
well as neighboring countries, is likely to take considerable time as they
entail major environmental, social, inter-state and international implications.
These need careful study and interaction with the stakeholders. It is envisaged
that all feasible schemes will be completed by the year 2025.
Recurring
Activities
These
activities which include inspection of dams, embankments and other structural
measures, execution of restoration and strengthening works and expansion and
modernisation of flood forecasting and warning systems, are to be taken on a
regular basis for ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of various
measures for minimising flood risk. The relevance and status of various
activities will be continuously monitored and reviewed. The activities will be
modified, if felt necessary. The preparedness of the central ministries and
departments concerned and the state governments will be reviewed in April/May
every year and appropriate corrective measures will be taken before the
commencement of the monsoon. A post-monsoon review will be held every year in
November/December so as to finalise the action plan for preparatory measures to
be implemented before the onset of the next monsoon.
Flood Management
Plans
It is expected
that based on these guidelines the central ministries and departments concerned
and the state governments will prepare their FMPs which will be holistic,
participatory, inclusive, ecofriendly and gender-sensitive in nature and the
implementation of which will result in a flood- resilient India. The plans will
focus on the community and the collective efforts of the government and NGOs.
XXX
ACCOUNT
DETAILS FOR CONTRIBUTION
XXX
KERALA FLOOD NUMBERS:
1.
DEATH TOLL 29
2.
54000 DISPLACED
3.
439 RELIEF CAMPS
4.
5 COLUMNS OF ARMY
5.
7 SEVERELY HIT NORTHERN DISTRICTS OUT OF 14
6.
No comments:
Post a Comment