Expressing a deep sense of anguish over misery and devastation caused by flash floods in Uttarakhand, national trade organisation ASSOCHAM has said that none of the key guidelines of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on flood control and preparedness were implemented by the State Government.
More significantly, the ASSOCHAM has stated that the comprehensive guidelines issued by the NDMA in June 2008 and enumerated in 135 pages are gathering dust with most of the State Governments like Odisha, which are failing to implement the norms.
“If only the guidelines like inspection of dams, embankments and other structural measures twice every year before monsoon and after monsoon and flash flood forecasting and warning systems are followed, immense misery to human lives and material loss worth several thousand crores of rupees will be avoided,” the chamber’s president Rajkumar Dhoot said.
While the implementation of these norms is to be left to the State, district and local authorities with the water being a State subject, the ASSOCHAM said it is time the NDMA Act of 2005 was reviewed making enforcement of the norms the mandatory requirement by all the concerned authorities.
“Adequate provisions must be provided in the Act to fix the responsibility if only we have to save our country from the natural disasters,” the ASSOCHAM president said. If required, the State Governments should be asked to formulate their own laws as well to deal with the disaster management so that accountability for serious lapses could be fixed, he said.
Some parts of the country experience sudden heavy rains known as cloudbursts causing flash floods. Hilly areas in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, the northern areas of West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura and the coastal areas in the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and lakshadweep are more prone to such phenomena, the ASSOCHAM president said.