Floods: India lacks the science to deal with nature

                                                                                                                                                                          photo: from ibnlive

The torrential rains that have lashed across the north of India, especially in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, have caused great havoc with more than 120 people feared dead and over 60,000 people stranded without food and other basic facilities.  Videos of large buildings toppling into rivers have compounded to the fear. There are a lot of contributing factors to the present tragedy — the most obvious ones are that environment safety norms that the government should have maintained were flouted. The May 20 order of the National Green Tribunal for demolishing all illegal constructions on the flood plains and river beds of Yamuna and Hindon in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi is proof of this. Massive deforestation, thanks to unplanned and uncontrolled urbanisation in these ecologically fragile terrains, has also led to landslides in the region. That laws have been flouted and environmental concerns have been ignored points to the fact that the Doctrine of Public Trust when it comes to safeguarding natural resources, in this case rivers, has not been viable judicial tool.

The question that needs to be asked is what are the steps that the government will take from here; what are the lessons learnt and what will be done to minimise, if not prevent, such a catastrophe from happening again? The torrential rains over the last few days were two weeks ahead of its schedule, but it is no alibi for the government as it was not prepared to meet such a situation. While the armed forces pressed into rescue missions have been doing a commendable job, the government’s lack of technological expertise in forecasting such climatic variations has been exposed. The glitches faced by the R15-crore doppler radar system, meant to predict thunderstorms and other changes in weather patterns, acquired by the India Meteorological Department, has not proved the game-changer it was meant to be. While there have been efforts by the department to upgrade technology, the S-band doppler radar replaced the S-band cyclone detection radars, it does not seem to be on top of the game when it comes to weather forecasting. There are lessons that India can take from neighbouring Bangladesh in shoring up its early warning systems. Dhaka has, with the help of organisations like the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, set up advanced long-lead flood forecasting systems. Such systems can help authorities in India to be prepared to meet the challenges such seasonal vagrancies throw up.
Another area where the authorities concerned need to focus is on dissemination of information to the people in affected or flood-prone areas. Timely information reduces the causality during such situations. There are no two opinions that the foothills of the Himalayas are great tourist points and the state governments earn a sizeable part of their revenue through tourism. However, keeping in mind the infrastructural challenges and limitations, the government should think about regulating the flow of tourists to these places. For the government to invest in the state-of-art technology is also an economically prudent move as studies have shown that for every rupee invested in early warning systems the return in the form of less fatalities and minimal damage is beneficial.