The flood management report in The Telegraph on Friday

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 16: The Opposition in Orissa today cornered the government on the issue of floods, accusing it of ineptness in managing the Hirakud reservoir.

Congress deputy chief whip Prasad Harichandan demanded a techno-judicial inquiry into what he described as a man-made disaster.

The government, on the other hand, asserted that engineers had stuck to the rules in the management of the reservoir.

The Telegraph in its Friday’s edition carried a detailed report on Hirakud reservoir’s management and stimulated a debate on whether the current floods could be attributed to human error.

Harichandan, whose constituency has been reeling from the floods, accused the government of failing to regulate the flow of water in the Mahanadi river system.

“If the flow of rivers such as Daya, Bhargabi and Kushabhadra has been checked now, why was it not done earlier? Had that happened, the floods could have been avoided,” the leader said.

The Congress leader also alleged violation of the rule curve guiding the regulation of Hirakud reservoir. Stating that the management of the reservoir had to be seen in the larger context of the flow from rivers such as Hansedeo and Bango, upstream of Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh, he said: “The government has totally failed in this regard. When the water came suddenly, the engineers had no alternative but to discharge the water at the last moment.”

Senior BJP leader Bijoya Mohapatra said the government had failed to anticipate the huge inflow into the reservoir at short notice.

“There are nearly 40 wireless stations between Chhattisgarh and Orissa. Why the government could not obtain information on the inflow of water from Chhattisgarh to Orissa? The government is lying. Chhattisgarh government had given the necessary information but we failed to react,” said Mohapatra.

The leader, who has served as the irrigation minister in the Biju Patnaik cabinet in the 1990s, said the government should also have taken note of the fact that the quantum of rainfall in September was more than two per cent higher compared to August during the last few years.

Sambalpur MLA and BJP stalwart Jainarayan Mishra described the floods as a man-made disaster.

He accused the engineers of keeping the Hirakud reservoir level five feet higher than what it should have been when the calamity struck. “This is a conspiracy. Now, the government is trying to gain sympathy of the people by distributing relief with an eye on the forthcoming panchayat polls,” he said.

Harichandan suggested that the government should constitute a working group of engineers from Orissa and Chhattisgarh to preclude the eventuality of having to make heavy discharges from Hirakud reservoir. He said a techno-judicial inquiry was necessary to pinpoint the blame.

“With the river brimming, all care should have been taken to avoid any major damage while releasing water from Hirakud. The government had kept the water level high in the reservoir to protect the interests of industrialists. When things appeared to be going out of hand, water was released hitting lakhs of people,” he said.

On the other hand, senior BJD leader and former minister Damodar Rout said with lakhs of people going through a harrowing time in the flood zone, this was not the right time to debate whether it was a man-made disaster or not.

However, Rout said: “The flood control system needs to be redesigned. For the past few years, normal monsoon rainfall in the state has been less than that triggered by depressions in the sea. The rule curve for Hirakud was designed when there was no dam upstream. At that time, it was possible to regulate 11-12 lakh cusecs of water in the downstream. However, now 13-15 lakh cusecs of water is coming into the river whose bed is heavily silted. All these issues need to be looked at.”