Not roping in experts for dam work led to U’khand disaster

Uttarakhand is yet to come out of the aftereffects of the natural disaster there. The hill state has been in focus for over a decade due to construction of several dams on the Ganga and its various upland tributaries in the Himalayan region. These numerous small and big dams were constructed in great hurry, but without proper hydrological, geological, hydraulics related investigations, including geological mappings and expected implications.

The construction of dams alters the flow regime of the rivers and if a thirsty aquifer (water-bearing strata of the earth in which water is contained and flows like in a river, such as, the mythological and the underground Saraswati river at the confluence GangaYamuna rivers at Allahabad) is encountered in the process of dam construction, then most river water gets lost in such aquifers. Later on, the people start crying that the river has vanished due to dam constructions. Also, the lost river water is manifested when the outflow from the dam becomes much less than the water inflow into the dam. This may also result in river diversion situations.

Apart from these, the flow regimes and catchment areas of the region get severely disturbed. Thus, when heavy rain occurs, floods enter unknown and unwanted areas, which no one had even visualised. This is what had happened in Uttarakhand when heavy rain, coupled with cloud-bursts and huge quantities of groundwater were released from water saturated aquifers exposed by the thunder-strikes. Together, this made for an extremely large volume of water flowing all around in unexpected and unknown areas, causing severe flood fury. Thousands

WHEN HEAVY RAIN OCCURS, FLOODS ENTER UNKNOWN AND UNWANTED AREAS, WHICH NO ONE HAD EVEN VISUALISED. THIS IS WHAT HAD HAPPENED IN UTTARAKHAND

of pilgrims visiting Kedarnath and other holy shrines were washed away or buried in the debris brought in by the floodwaters and in land-slides but lakhs got stranded for weeks with nothing to eat or drink. Unfortunately, rescue operations started late and most operations got concentrated in the Hemkund area, while the largest chunk of pilgrims was at Kedarnath and its downsides. Such a severe tragedy could have easily been avoided if the ministry of environment and forests (MOEF) had its decision makers from civil engineering, hydrology, hydraulics, environmental engineering, geology backgrounds but there exist almost no such specialists in the said ministry in which the entire decision making command is with the pseudo-environmentalists having zero knowledge of hydraulics without which no environmental or waterresource project can ever be planned, executed or investigated. Unfortunately, the real environmental engineers are considered outcastes in the MOEF. The point is proved from the factual failure of Ganga cleaning in 28 years despite the ministry’s efforts at all levels.