Mumbai Mirror: Mumbai: Saturday,
June 22, 2013.
The unfolding
tragedy in Uttarakhand has raised the inevitable question: how much of it was
avoidable? Was this merely nature's fury or man made disaster? Torrential rains
coupled with a cloudburst caused heavy landslides and river flooding.
Mumbaikars
are familiar with cloudburst. On July 26 in 2005 Mumbai received 944
millimeters of rainfall in 24 hours, due to a cloudburst phenomenon. In
comparison, Dehradun recorded only 380 mm between Sunday and Monday. But this
was the highest it has ever received in one day. This is almost as much as what
it receives during the entire monsoon season in a normal year. The first
question is: why are we unable to forecast the amount of rainfall? If not
weeks, we must be able to have an accurate forecast a few days in advance.
We have some
of world's fastest super computers deployed for weather forecasting. We have
real time satellite imagery being recorded. We have earth stations monitoring
precipitation. Yet, monsoon forecasting is as unreliable as stock market
forecasting. By western standards, this is unacceptable. If we had a tsunami
type advance warning, more pilgrims might have been evacuated. This leads to
the second man-made factor. The quality of roads. Even in normal times, the
road condition is unsatisfactory. So quick and large scale evacuation of
pilgrims would have been a challenge even if advance warning had been given.
The third man-made factor relates to disaster preparedness.
The Times of
Indiareported that the state of Uttarakhand's disaster plan did not exist, and
its preparedness was found wanting by the CAG. Disaster management budget,
normally given by the centre, had to be returned unspent, because the state did
not have the system, functions, plans and adequate personnel in place. For a
state straddling ecologically sensitive zones, this is quite appalling. The
fourth, and possibly the biggest man-made factor behind the Garhwal tragedy is
the mindless proliferation of hydel power projects.
An RTI query
filed by activists in 2010 revealed that the state government planned to
construct 557 dams across the river Ganga and its tributaries. The People's
Science Institute based in Dehradun identified another 117 dams that were not
revealed by the answer to the RTI query. This is an astonishingly high number.
The website of the state owned Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam (UJVN) Limited
gives details of all the dams in operation, as well as the various proposed
hydel power projects. These range from micro, mini, medium to mega.
Next to the
Narmada Bachao Andolan, which brought the problem of big dams into India's
consciousness, the biggest agitation has been against the Tehri dam. This is
the highest dam in India, tallest in the world, on the river Bhagirathi. Its
first phase was completed in 2006, despite intense opposition, and it produces
1000 megawatt of electricity.
But in its
wake, as the UJVN website reveals, there are literally hundreds of dams on
rivers like Bhagirathi, Alaknanda, Mandakini, Gauriganga, which are either
built, or about to be built and are running "bumper-to-bumper". These
are mostly in Garhwal, and called "run of the river" dams. They leave
the river with dry patches, interspersed with reservoir storage.
Often a
"short cut" is created by blasting tunnels through hill-sides, to
create a gravity induced water flow. It plays havoc with the ecology, the flora
and fauna, and the local people's livelihoods. The long term impact of such
hydel projects is unknown.
Many small
dams get silted much faster than expected. The current tragedy is thus an early
warning wake-up call.
Of course
this does not mean that Uttarakhand's people do not deserve to have any
electricity. But the state should also not be seen as a goldmine of infinite
hydel power to be exploited by rest of the country. Arunachal and Bhutan, take
note.
.JPG)
.JPG)
