Modidom’s watery grave

This was no nature’s curse. This was man-made. A post-mortem of the devastating flash floods in Surat puts the onus squarely on the Gujarat government

 Ashok Patel Surat

Surat is a resilient city, but it went under water, mud and silt in the second week of August. In 1968, it survived the onrush of 15,00,000 cusecs of water, but in 2006, it was washed away with 10,00,000 cusecs. Two new features added to Gujarat’s landscape in the intervening period are the Utkai dam and Narottam Patel, Water Resources Minister in the Narendra Modi-led BJP regime. The combination was disastrous.

There was heavy rain in the upper reaches of the hydrological basin of river Tapti in Maharashtra from August 3 and heavy in-flow of water in the catchment area of the Ukai dam. It would be logical to assume that as the in-flow increased, water would have to be released in a calibrated manner. The danger mark in the Ukai dam was fixed at 345 ft in 1972 when there was no silt deposits in the base of the dam. The dam authorities, under the leadership of Narottam Patel, were following a 35-year-old monsoon schedule. This year, the old calculations went awry and flow of water increased above 10,00,000 cusecs. Indeed, if this inflow had continued at the same pace, the dam’s safety would have been in jeopardy.

Engineers, political leaders and concerned others urgently requested the authorities to release water, but there was no response, until the storage increased to submerge 19 villages of Nizar taluka on the banks of the river in the early morning of August 7. The Collector, Vatsala Vasudeva, who had taken up the issue eventually, had to go on leave on August 4. The voices of saner elements such as Pankaj Joshi, the Surat Municipal Commissioner, who was desperately requesting the higher-ups to release water in phases, were decisively drowned. 

The inflow had increased to drown many villages in Nizar and Songadh talukas. But on the noon of August 7, while hapless villagers were grappling with the deluge, in a press conference, Narottam Patel stoutly clung on to his obstinacy: he refused to release even one drop of water. As the inflow kept increasing while the authorities went to the other extreme – they released 10,00,000 cusecs of water at one go. Here again, they were advised against the sudden outflow. In 1998, when 7 lakh cusecs was released from the Ukai dam, large parts of the city was flooded and waterlogged.  But yet again, the saner voices were ignored.

The sudden addition of a big quantum of water that was beyond the drainage capacity of Tapti river, with steady and massive siltation, caused it to overflow at noon and caused a devastating flash-flood in Surat city. Water rushed to the lower areas of Rander and Adajan. By the evening it reached the Chowk area. The ‘protection walls’ at Jahangirpura, Athwa and Rander could not withstand the pressure of water, and they caved. Rander, Adajan, Katargam and Ved Road were the worst affected. Those in upper storey houses survived, but those on the ground floor lost everything.

Industries in Hazira and businesses reported losses amounting to Rs 24 crore. The economy of the four million-strong city was seriously affected. After the floods came the epidemics -- innumerable cases of malaria, viral fever, leptospirosis, humorginic pneumonia and diphtheria are being registered with a toll of 200 reported thus far.

Politically, it has widened the political divide within the ruling establishment. Top BJP leader Nalin Bhatt resigned in protest, several others rallied against Narendra Modi and his loyalists who goofed it up so badly despite tall claims of Modi being a ‘great administrator’. Dissidents were told to shut up or else…. But the rumblings continue, even as more evidence flows in that this was no ‘natural disaster’, the fact is the Modi regime and its ministers and officials were directly responsible for the devastation caused by the flash floods.