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| A girl uses a makeshift raft to cross a flooded paddy field in Buraburhi village in Assam’s Morigaon district. (Reuters) |
Assam is currently battling multiple problems on various fronts. To add to the ethnic clashes that have displaced lakhs of people are the persistent floods. This time Assam faced and might still have to brace for the worst-ever floods, which also displaced lakhs of people. Over the years so much money has been pumped into flood control with little outcome. It’s become a routine affair which the government does not seem to be bothered about. If the government had serious concerns, it would have ensured that the river embankments were more enduring.
Sanjoy Ghosh, the social worker who tried to address the issue of flood control in Majuli with the participation of local people, lost his life in that attempt. This explains that flood control itself is a business run by the mafia and anyone who tries to confront this insidious lobby will pay with his life. Is this the reason why Akhil Gogoi has not said a word about turning the flood control measures in Assam on its head and giving it a different shape?
It would be enlightening to find out why flood control measures and the department concerned seem to have consistently failed to produce any results. The loss of lives and habitation seems to go up with every flood. People gossip that the flood control department is corrupt. But are there other reasons? Are scientists, hydrologists, geologists doing enough to understand the reason for the Brahmaputra’s fury? Are they giving enough data to the implementing department to address the issue of flood control? Is the government paying heed to those suggestions? It would also be educative to find out why recurrent floods have not been controlled in Assam and why we cannot learn from other countries that have done so successfully. Where is the money for flood control actually invested? And how do government officials quickly arrive at the number of affected people? How does the government quickly work out the figure for a relief package? Has this not become a ritual?
While climate change is real and its effects are felt by way of cloudbursts leading to flash floods, deluge can also be termed a natural calamity. But there are some things that man can help alleviate with the right expertise and attitude. Time and again it has been said that habitations too near riverbanks and settlements around areas where the river had once changed course, can add to the devastation. But the government seems to fight a losing battle trying to prevent people from settling and farming on these areas. If so, then is the government obliged to rehabilitate an intransigent population that goes against the common wisdom that a river may return to its abandoned course and wreak havoc? Why are people not told upfront that they are settling around these potential hotspots at their own risk?
Let’s come to the embankments. North Lakhimpur, which was devastated by a major flood some years ago, is a case in point. Embankments are made of sand that is banked from the river itself and has no binding element whatsoever. The embankments are corroded by the force of water during monsoon and slowly give way to be finally washed away. Where embankments are properly constructed, the devastation is relatively lesser. But this is only if one takes into account that the water level of a river in full spate does not exceed the height of the embankment. In a cloudburst, the waters become almost uncontrollable and the resultant flash floods are also beyond all human control. The only way to prevent loss of human lives is to have early warning systems. But this cannot prevent loss of property and livestock.
In recent times, Guwahati itself has been under water. Areas around the airport have been swamped with water. Another important reason for flooding is the destruction of swamps or beels, the largest one being Deepor Beel, which is home to the white stork. Most of these swamps around the Borjhar area have been drained and filled up to create buildings and housing apartments. But swamps, as we know, have their own utility. They cannot be treated as wastelands. A swamp acts as a sponge because runoff can be temporarily stored in them. This makes them a kind of natural flood control agent. They carry shallow flows of runoff over a large area and help to lower flood velocity as the water is received, and then spread out. Trees, plants, roots, and soil help to absorb some water. But where are the forests? In Arunachal Pradesh, there has been an enormous erosion of forest areas after trees were cut off to create hydroelectric dams. Heavy rainfall for a few hours is enough to cause floods in Assam. So what our neighbours do also affects us. Which is why inter-state arrangements rather than confrontations are more useful.
The rate at which the beels around Borjhar are being filled up is scary. It is bound to result in another catastrophe in the near future. Recently, the road from the airport to the city was flooded and vehicles had a tough time negotiating the waters. But engineers and environmentalists do not seem to care about the fate of the city and its suburbs, which now do not have the capacity for natural drainage of rainwater and are also afflicted by the encroachment of backwaters. Experts believe that soon Borjhar airport, too, might be flooded and prevent flights from landing at Guwahati. How is it that the government of Assam is not seized of this problem? Governments are expected to pre-empt disaster. In Assam, the government seems to invite disaster. In school, we learnt that the Hwang Ho (Yellow River) was China’s sorrow for killing thousands of people each year when it flooded. Over the years, the Chinese have tried to control the Yellow River by building higher levees, digging channels and building dams. Dams have proved to be the most helpful in controlling floods. Now the Chinese are constructing a massive new dam, the Xiaolangdi multipurpose dam project. This dam has 10 intake towers, nine flood and sediment tunnels, six power tunnels and an underground powerhouse. This structure, we are told, might finally mitigate “China’s sorrow.”
Then we have the Nile in Egypt. When the Nile flooded it also deposited rich sediment on its banks and farmers cultivated crops on them. But population growth has forced the Egyptians to tame the Nile. In 1970, they completed the Aswan dam, which stretches across the Nile, 600 miles south of Cairo. The dam has effectively stopped the river’s annual floods by trapping its waters in a reservoir that is slowly released during the dry season.
But there is a downside as well. The Aswan dam traps 98 per cent of the river’s rich sediments and prevents them from flowing downstream. Hence, farmers along the Nile must now use large amounts of artificial fertilizer. Another negative side effect of the dam is that the Nile delta is no longer being built up by river sediments. As a result, this important agricultural area is now struggling with erosion and dangerously high levels of soil salinity. But all this must be measured against the devastation that could occur if the Nile is let loose. This is how countries manage to reduce devastations through floods instead of just sitting back and allowing the river to break its banks every year.
(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com)
