Flood Management Measures

Source: The post is based on the article “Flood Management Measures”  published in PIB  on 10th August 2023.

What is the News?

Minister of State for Jal Shakti in Lok Sabha has informed about the Flood Management measures taken by the government of India.

What are measures taken by the government of India to manage floods?

Jurisdiction over flood management: Flood management including erosion control falls within the purview of the States. Flood management and anti-erosion projects are formulated and implemented by concerned State Governments from their own resources as per their priority. 

– The Union Government supplements the efforts of the States by providing technical guidance and also promotional financial assistance for management of floods in critical areas. 

Structural measures of flood management: The Ministry of Jal Shakti introduced the Flood Management Programme (FMP) during the XI and XII Plans. This program aimed to provide financial support to states for various flood management, erosion control, drainage development, and anti-sea erosion projects. 

This program later became part of the “Flood Management and Border Areas Programme” (FMBAP) from 2017-18 to 2020-21, extended until September 2022 with a limited budget.

Non Structural measures of flood management: The Central Water Commission (CWC) is responsible for predicting and giving early warnings about floods in India. They use a system of 338 forecasting stations across 20 major river basins in 23 States and 2 Union Territories. This helps local authorities prepare for evacuations and take necessary actions.

– To improve the time available for planning, CWC has created flood forecasting models for each basin. These models use rainfall and runoff data to predict floods up to 5 days in advance and provide advice to the forecasting stations.

Committee to create strategy for Flood management: NITI Aayog has formed a committee under the chairmanship of Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog and members from various government departments, experts and state officials to create strategies for flood management and river activities in border areas. 

The committee’s key recommendations from their January 2021 report, include:

– Improve collection of hydro-meteorological data and simplify sharing policies, especially for rivers crossing borders between states.

– Focus on scientific research to develop models that predict flash floods earlier, reducing their impact.

– Develop and update reservoir operation rules based on changing rainfall patterns and growing population, urbanization, and industry.

– Construct large storage reservoirs to control floods by managing water release schedules.

– Prevent encroachment on natural flood areas and restore them for flood control.

– Implement river interlinking projects to divert flood waters to water-deficient regions within a set timeframe.

– Stop reclaiming existing wetlands or natural depressions and create plans to use them for flood moderation instead.