State sitting on flood control funds

The state has sanctioned a whopping Rs 725 crore towards flood control measures for 2013-14. The first instalment of Rs 123.35 crore was released in March with instructions to utilise the funds on a war-footing in anticipation of a bumper monsoon and floods thereafter.

The funds were meant for repairing of existing embankments on major rivers and construction of new ones,repairing of canal network and arrangements for flood relief.

The shortlisted embankments include Turtipar,Srinagar,Ballia,Bairia,Vikramjot,Dhuswa,Sakraura,Bhikharipur,Elgin Charsari,Belha,Behrauli,Revli,Adampur,Usawa,Ganga Mahav,Ushait,Lalpur Dhanauri,Dadhiyal,Lalpur Rohela and Kadakka. These embankments are regarded as highly sensitive and cover rivers Ganga,Sharda and Ghaghra. Any breach in these bunds would result in a flood.

Instructions were issued to utilise the funds by May 31 but was extended to June 15 after the irrigation department could only utilise Rs 25.48 crore. The department,however,failed again and also did not undertake the cleaning of drains across the state. From the existing network of 2559.87 km of drain,only 25.40 km was cleaned.

Divisions in Ramganga,Kanpur,which was allotted Rs 4.25 crore,Sharda and Sharda Sahayak,Lucknow (Rs 2 crore each),Sone in Varanasi and Gandak in Gorakhpur (Rs 1 crore each) did not undertake any drain cleaning exercise. Only Ganga division at Meerut undertook cleaning of 5.60 km of drain from the Rs 4.5 crore that was alotted to it and Poorvi Ganga at Moradabad undertook cleaning of only 19.80 km from the Rs 1 crore allotted to it. With the drains now submerged in water,there is no possibility of their cleaning this season.

Principal Secretary,Irrigation,Deepak Singhal informed that the flood situation arose due to excess flow of water from several barrages. The Hathikund Barrage on Yamuna released an excess of 8 lakh cusecs of water,while Bheemgauda Handworks in Hardwar and Banbasa in Champawat released 4 lakh cusecs extra water each.

Meanwhile,the flood situation in the state remained grim on Tuesday. Ganga was flowing at 178.80 m at Naraura,which is above the danger level of 178.42 m. Sharda is flowing 1.12 m above the danger mark at 154.74 m.

As many as 30 places in the state recorded rainfall of above 25 mm in the past 24 hours with Bansi in Sidharth Nagar recording 204.8 mm,Palia Kalan in Lakhimpur 160.8 mm,Kakrahi in Sidharth Nagar 147.6 mm and Kalagarh in Bijnore recording 135.6 mm of rainfall. Flood units of PAC was pressed for relief operations.