Taming the Floods

For water, energy and security, there are some rules that cannot be tampered with. Our political leadership cannot interfere with the system to the detriment of the lives of citizens

The country is being ravaged by floods, unusual in at least some of the affected areas. The science and technology ministry owes us a serious assessment of the World Bank statement that India is entering a 8216;wet8217; phase that may last till the end of the century on account of climate change. Immediate concerns are more compelling as life and property take a massive battering.

Some have used the misery of the floods to highlight their pet theme that dams cause damage. Some contradict a basic law that at a moment of time, other things remaining the same, a storage will impound water which would otherwise cause damage. I remember making this point in 1997 8212; while flying into Ahmedabad with my colleague, the then agriculture minister 8212; to a journalist, who held that a large canal system to the north was 8216;flooding8217; the city. Told that my credentials were low, since my own house close to the canal, was flooded, I argued that the floodwaters would be higher if the storage system was not in place.

But this time around, more thoughtful commentators have been making the valid point that through time, a badly managed storage can cause more damage than a free flow.

Left to themselves, our engineers are good professionals. Their rough and ready tools are time-tested and avoid great damage if faithfully followed, even if they are not the most efficient by way of costs. For irrigation engineers, the safety of the structure is of paramount concern. For the monsoons, they have simple, clear, rule-bound action-points for safety collected in the Manuals of Practice. According to one of Gujarat8217;s most popular vernacular newspapers, such a manual existed for the Ukai dam and was violated 8212; with devastating results.

Like most citizens of Gujarat, I was praying for Surat on the nights of August 10 and 11. The Tapti was ravaging Surat, but the damage would be unimaginable if the Ukai dam was breached. To my mind, it was not in danger because 8212; as reported and as I knew 8212; it was an earthen dam which, if properly designed and constructed, is quite safe. After all, lime and earthen constructions survive till date from the Indus Valley Civilisation. But if the flood was severe and a storage badly managed, the costs could be mind-boggling. The flood was severe and Surat suffered immensely, but the dam held.

A few months ago, in an influential think-tank in Delhi, I argued that we don8217;t have a national elite. Otherwise, given India8217;s energy and security concerns, I could not see how the meeting was advocating policies that would injure India8217;s chances of completing the nuclear fuel cycle in the shortest available time.

Now, in any reasonably regulated society, there should be no question of anybody violating a safety rule. Life is too precious to play around with. But from all accounts available to the citizen, this happened in Ukai.

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The message is clear. For water, energy and security, there have to be some rules which will not, I repeat, not be tampered with. Our political leadership is very powerful since it carries the mandate of the people and it can decide whether we should or should not have a storage or an electricity system. But it cannot interfere with the working of systems to the detriment of the lives of the citizens.

In fact, we must move over from the existing rough and ready rules to more sophisticated optimal operation systems. It was shown long ago that optimal scheduling of Bhakra yielded great benefits. For Sardar Sarovar, in spite of what the philistines have to say, there exist models of operation with flows in all reservoirs upstream, so that there is a very high probability of a near-full reservoir at the end of the monsoons.

Drainage systems have to be built as mirror images of canals. Rivers have to be trained and drainages in cities have to be planned in land use. Because no dam will be large enough to hold back the really bad flood; that will always need to be managed.

These rules are less expensive than the rough and ready rules we follow. Safety is the first principle protected. The first rule, however, has to be to keep some things above politics.