Background:-
The tragedy of the monsoons is often floods and landslides — 2017 was no different. The Government of India claims that by July 28, 2017, a period by when the monsoons had made their onset over most of India, about 600 deaths have occurred across the country due to floods and landslides.
The government made this announcement during the declaration of compensation to the tune INR 500 crores for flood victims in Gujarat, where heavy showers and subsequent flooding claimed about 100 lives (S.K. Ramchandran, 2017). Flash flooding also killed 6 people in Jammu & Kashmir in Thatri town in Doda district, with many people feared missing due to the flow of debris.
The flood prone state of Assam, where floods have claimed about 76 lives with about 16 lakh people affected, has witnessed about 2 lakh ha of agricultural land being inundated by the deluge (N. Mitral, 2017). The Assam Government seeks INR 3,000 crores grants from the Centre as interim relief, much above the Rs 500 crore that was offered. The Assam Government also announced its ambitious plans to build a 5,000 km long embankment under the policy infrastructure provided by the Prime Minister’s special flood and erosion control programme. Among the flood prone states, Bihar has been till data out of the flood ambit, as it has received light to moderate rainfall so far accompanied with generally cloudy skies.
Flood-Prone Areas in India
Out of the total geographical area of 329 million ha (mha) in India, over 40 mha is flood prone (NDMA, 2017). The Government of India identifies certain areas in India as chronically flood prone and institutes measures to deal with their problems and also formulates development policies in these areas with regard to the possibility of a flooding event. The most flood-prone areas include the Indo-Gangetic plains including parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal; the Brahmaputra plains including large parts of Assam; Gujarat; Maharashtra; Odisha; Seemandhra and Telangana.
Fig: Areas Marked in Red are Flood Prone Areas of India
Source: CWC
Flood Mitigation
Floods being the most common natural disaster in India, the Central Water Commission (CWC), GoI began the flood forecasting service in 1958 with the purpose of the issuing of water level forecasts for river Yamuna for Delhi.
The year 1969 witnessed the setting up of a Flood Forecast and Warning Organization by the CWC to set up forecasting sites for inter-state rivers at various locations in India expected to be flood prone areas. These forecasts were based on checking the water levels of major water bodies such as rivers and establishing water levels that were classified under various categories.
An important part of this exercise regarding flood forecasting began with checking for whether the levels of surface water in the water body had crossed the ‘warning level’, after which the water body was monitored as a possibility for a flood risk.
This monitoring system based on monitoring stations formed the basis for much of flood mitigation in consonance with state resources for a long period before a shift was observed in thought in India over flood mitigation policy. The CWC utilizes a system of classification of floods depending on the severity of the flooding event as (CWC, 2016) –
- Low flood – when the water level crosses the warning level but is below the danger mark.
- Moderate flood – when the water level is above the danger mark but less than 0.50 m below the Highest Flood level (HFL) of the site.
- High flood – when the water level at the site is between the HFL and 0.50 m below it.
- Unprecedented flood – when the water level crosses the HFL at any forecasting site until the event, which leads to a special ‘Red Bulletin’ being issued by the CWC for various agencies.
Widespread destruction of life and property over the years has led to various structural and non-structural measures taken by central and state governments for flood mitigation, and considerable protection is provided to people affected or likely to be affected by flooding events.
The trend in policy thought in India has been to institute a techno-legal regime that serve to make structures flood-proof and techno-legal developmental instruments that can regulate activities in flood prone areas such that damage caused due to flooding is minimized.
This involves improving the technological efficiency of flood forecasting and warning systems and providing a Decision Support System (DSS) based on scientific findings and the latest global technological developments. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) recommends a step-by-step process for forming a strong policy regime on flooding events in flood-prone areas. This involves –
- Capacity development and improvement of flood response mechanisms by central and state governments for taking preventive and mitigatory measures at the pre- during- and post-flood stages.
- Minimising flood-risk and losses of life and property through a 3 phase process involving firstly identification and review of flood prone areas, secondly formulation of schemes for flood forecasting expansion and modernization, and thirdly implementation of all activities.
Identification and review activities for flood prone areas involve preparing flood vulnerability maps and flood forecasting, use of technological improvements in collection and evaluation of meteorological data, and warning technology for flood prone areas such as flood hazard evaluation with the help of satellite data.
The scheme related activities include site-specific drainage improvement with the help of instruments such as building embankments, periodic review of dams and reservoirs for water levels and drainage, conducting studies on river erosion, and improving existing drainage networks.
The activities pertaining to enforcement include enforcement of flood plain zoning regulations, catchment area treatment for dams, inspections of water bodies including areas such as those of embankments and other structures, and building national and international co-operation for the management of water resources.
Flood hazard mitigation also requires joint formulation of forecasts to prevent ambiguity that could have a ripple effect on the ground situation. Also development activities have to be regulated to avoid features such as drainage congestion, soil testing techniques applied for preventing rise in water levels due to erosion and siltation, etc.
In all, an integrated approach is necessary such that a scientific basis of having early warning systems for flooding in flood-prone areas is present, and the response in terms of management of flooding disasters is adequate such that have an early warning system that provides for a more co-ordinated response from the administrative machinery.
Recent Posts
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.