Successive State Governments undertook varied actions ranging from academic deliberations to incorporating aspects of bioengineering and treatment work to tackle the chronic problem of landslides in Uttarakhand.
Different Government institutions and departments have researched landslides and related aspects using space technology combined with traditional field work since before the creation of Uttarakhand State.
landslide hazard zonation maps have also been made available for some years now but the authorities have managed to achieve little progress towards long-term treatment of landslides and related hazards exacerbated annually during the rainy season.
In the landslide compendium project for north western Himalaya by the Geological Survey of India (GSI), about two dozen highly unstable zones studied by GSI are located in Uttarakhand, with a lesser number of the same in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
Recently, in a written reply to a question in the lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, YS Chowdary stated that landslides are a common geomorphic hazard in Himalayan States generally triggered by heavy rainfall almost every year and also often by major earthquakes in this active Himalayan fold-thrust-belt.
Available landslide susceptibility and inventory maps along important pilgrimage routes, road-corridors, river basins and site-specific large scale landslide maps have already revealed that within these Himalayan States, parts of many mountainous tracts and locations are highly vulnerable and susceptible to landslides.
The project of creating a landslide compendium for north western Himalayas started on April 1, 2014 includes all major landslide studies carried out by the GSI till 2013 in the north west Himalaya region in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir States.
The compendium contains information including landslide susceptibility maps (lSM) covering parts of river basins including the Bhagirathi, Ganga, Yamuna and Ramganga in Uttarakhand, lSM covering major towns of Pithoragarh, Joshimath, Bageshwar and Ranikhet and important pilgrimage road corridors including the Char Dham Yatra road network and Kailash Mansarovar yatra route; site specific landslide investigations including detailed geological maps; post disaster reconnoitary geological assessment of major landslide events including the June 2013 disaster along with an inventory of major landslides. While 24 highly unstable zones were studied by the GSI in Uttarakhand, the number of such zones was comparatively lesser at 13 in Himachal Pradesh and 15 in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, observers raise uncertainty stating that it remains to be seen whether the State authorities actually make effective use of the GSI landslide compendium for mitigation considering the apathy shown towards other existing studies on landslides.
They point out that in 2015, the site at Hathiparvat near Marwadi, Joshimath where rockfall debris had blocked national highway 58 to Badrinath had already been identified as a high hazard zone for rockfall in a study undertaken by scientists of Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) Roorkee in the past.
This study had been in the public domain since September 2013 but the disaster management machinery of the State Government had been unaware of it until after the highway was blocked by debris in 2015.
The study had stated that the stretch of the road from Pipalkoti to Badrinath is a landslide prone zone due to the adverse geological formation, steep slopes, highly dissected topography, seismically active area and high rainfall.
Six landslide potential zones containing 18 landslides were identified as affecting the road and traffic, posing threat to lives and properties. However this study was not even taken cognizance of in time to execute mitigation measures. Members of the research and applied science fraternity state that such studies were either ignored by the authorities or are stuck in tedious procedural state.