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.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.