Damn it, this was designed!

The Surat floods, with hundreds dead and missing and crores in financial losses, were an administrative disaster

Himanshu Thakkar Delhi

The mismanagement of large dams have led to several flood disasters in India in 2006, including in Tapi, Mahi, Sabarmati and Narmada basins in Gujarat-Parbati and Chambal basins in Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh, the Krishna basin in Maharashtra-Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh, and the Godavari basin in Maharashtra-Andhra Pradesh. Many of these disasters could have been prevented with efficient management of the dams. However, the unaccountable dam authorities are likely to get away with this criminal negligence yet again.

The high pre-monsoon storages in these reservoirs and sudden release of large quantities of water over prolonged periods when the dams were near full contributed largely to the situation.  Take the case of floods in Surat district in south Gujarat during August 7-11, 2006. The Ukai dam on the Tapi river upstream had 22 per cent storage filled even before the monsoon started. The dam was 77.54 per cent full on August 3; 93.83 per cent on August 7; and 100 per cent full on August 9.

The release from the dam was zero till as late as August 4, and even on August 5 the release was only to the extent of 24,000 cusecs. It was only on August 7 evening that excess of 8,00,000 cusecs of water was released, and that continued for four days. This, when everyone concerned in the establishment knew that the current carrying capacity of the Tapi river downstream from the dam is under 4,00,000 cusecs. Besides, they also knew that with the full moon on August 9, the river’s drainage capacity would further go down.

The result: unprecedented floods in Surat, losses of over Rs 21,000 crore (as stated by the BJP-led Gujarat government) and over Rs 50,000 crore as per the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce, death of over a hundred people with hundreds missing, flooding of 90 per cent of the Surat city for prolonged periods, and the closure of industries in the Hazira complex, which had impact even on Delhi’s power supply. This was a massive, man-made, administrative disaster, and this was completely avoidable.

Rainfall in the catchment area should determine the quantity of release from a dam. The daily rainfall figures in the talukas in the Tapi catchment area, particularly in Maharashtra (81 per cent of the catchment area upstream of the Ukai dam is in Maharashtra. The high rainfall event list can be seen at www.sandrp.in/new) were compared with how the Ukai reservoir level was rising during the 2006 monsoon. It was found that there was sufficient information available (the Maharashtra government updates these figures every day) to release 3,00,000 cusecs from the morning of August 1 or earlier. Had the Ukai dam authorities taken the initiative, there would have been no flood disaster in Surat since they would have released more than 3,00,000 cusecs during this monsoon and the dam would have been safe. This release of water was also necessary, considering the following facts of which the Ukai dam authorities were absolutely in the know:

l The Tapi river downstream from the Ukai dam had a carrying capacity of under 4,00,000 cusecs.

l The upcoming full moon day on August 9 would reduce the carrying capacity of the river.

l The Ukai dam, as designed, had a flood cushion of 1.332 billion cubic metres (bcm). This means that this much capacity of the dam should not be filled at all till the end of the monsoon.

l The siltation in the dam has reduced the live storage capacity of the reservoir to 5.77 bcm, which means that some of the 1.332 bcm capacity at top would also be filled with silt.

l The Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority had asked the authorities not to allow the dam height to go above 332 ft till the end of August, but that level had already been reached on August 1. And yet, the authorities did not release water from the dam till August 5.

The dam authorities tend to keep a high water level at the dams to maximise power generation. However, the figures of power generation at Ukai showed that the project was generating much below its potential and target of power generation throughout 2006. In fact, in July 2006, the power generated at Ukai was the lowest in 2006 (when it could have been the highest) at just 13 million units, less than 25 per cent of what could have been produced. This was a big economic loss. Had the project authorities generated power to its potential during all the months of 2006, again our calculations show, there would have been no floods in Surat.

This analysis was confirmed when it was learnt from a correspondent of a national daily that on August 2 the collector of Surat district was heard asking the Ukai chief engineer to release water from the dam as she was getting alarm calls from the Nandurbar collector in Maharashtra about heavy rainfall in the Tapi catchment area and likely inflows into the Ukai dam. Even after this urgent request from the Surat collector, no water was released from the Ukai dam for at least three days.

The Gujarat government has been using various miscellaneous means to deflect attention from the serious questions that have been raised about its handling of the Ukai dam and the destructive flash floods that followed. First, Chief Minister Narendra Modi tried to pass the buck to upstream Maharashtra, saying ‘they’ released a lot of water and did not inform the Gujarat government about this. This was countered by the Gujarat government’s own agency, the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, saying that Maharashtra has no big dams in the Tapi basin that can release such large quantities of water. When even BJP leaders and members in Gujarat started raising questions, they were threatened with show cause notices, which led to some of them leaving the party. Then, to silence all the questions in his typically totalitarian style, Modi set up an inquiry commission to go into the Surat floods. Indeed, with a former irrigation secretary of Gujarat government as a member of the commission, it fails to inspire trust.

In his speech read out at the World Gujarati Convention in the US in early September, Modi compared the Surat floods with the Morbi flood disaster of early 1980s, possibly hinting that as in case of the washing away of the Macchu dam in Morbi then, we may never know as to who was responsible for the Surat floods of 2006; nor will those responsible for this deliberate mishap be punished.

The case of the Tapi floods is equally applicable to the release of water from the dams in Mahi, Sabarmati, Narmada, Chambal, Parvati, Krishna and Godavari basins. All point to the utterly non-transparent and unaccountable functioning of the water resources establishment in India. 

The writer works with South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, Delhi cwaterp@vsnl.com