“Delhi Floods Due to Yamuna Encroachment”

Gustakhi Maaf Haryana- Pawan Kumar Bansal.

Delhi the issue of flooding of areas from River Yamuna, -again the culprit is the massive encroachment of the river plane supported by successive governments to appease the resultant vote bank.

Analysis of floods in Delhi,Punjab and Haryana-by our enlightened reader R.K.Garg retired EIC,Irrigation,Haryana and ex member Delhi Jal Board.Though we face some troubles every monsoon, this time however, particularly in Punjab, Delhi and towns like Gurgram the issue has come in greater focus because of heavier than average rainfall.
In Punjab, floods are mostly because of releases from dams built across Sutlej, Beas and Ravi rivers. These three rivers are life sustaining gifts of nature for the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan being the perennial sources of water, both for irrigation and drinking and hydro power to meet the domestic and industrial needs in these states.With building of major storage dams across these rivers, incidence of floods in the state receded substantially as only a fraction of peak discharges pre dams are released in to the rivers post dams. It however led the state and the people not to maintain the river courses. Encroachment of flood planes became common over the years including coming of human settlements. State also paid less than required attention to maintain the protection bunds etc. It results into submergence of several effected areas in case there arise requirement of release of discharges heavier than the usual discharges in normal monsoon years. People may recall hundreds of villages of the state getting flooded in 1988 when there were heavy receipts in the dams towards end of September when the dams were already full and the BBMB was forced to release heavy discharges down stream Bhakra and Pong dam.

Unfortunately these were the times when the State was facing terrorism and since many irresponsible voices in the State had blamed BBMB for the floods, the then chairman BBMB had to pay the price of his life. BBMB even this year has made clear that it was entirely for the state to maintain its water ways to manage flooding.
In Delhi, particularly in the matter of flooding of areas from River Yamuna, again the culprit is the massive encroachment of the river plane supported by successive governments to appease the resultant vote bank. Delhi may be the only national capital in the world where 46% of area has no access to any planned sewerage infrastructure. More than 50 lakh live in the colonies which were never planned and number of these are located in the Yamuna flood plane n other low lying areas.Urban plans in Delhi are more for a breach than implementation.
Gurgaon is a sad story of compromised urban planning more to suit the unholy nexus of builders-politicians and bureaucrats. No heed was paid to maintain the natural water ways and conservation of waters. In fact even the old classical n efficient storage system was demolished to accommodate the whimsical urban plans.Situation is worsened because of the apathy of our generally unaccountable administrative system.