In Shallow Waters

The Indore-Gandhinagar Shanti Express was stranded in the flood waters atDakor from 10.30 am on Thursday, June 30, till the time Rajesh Seth of Ahmedabad,on Saturday, July 2, decided to wade through neck-deep waters to reach thetrain to rescue his wife, daughter and 70 other passengers, leadingthem all to safety at a time when the administration as well as the securitypersonnel had given up on them.

Rajesh Seth’s heroics in pulling out ill-fated passengers from thetrain stranded in flood waters summed up the state of relief operations inflood-ravaged Gujarat. Proud of their own efforts to reach safety, thepassengers wondered if they could have survived the long wait for officialassistance. Not for the first time though, disaster preparedness has been onebig disaster, year after year. To top it all, arrest of Bihar flood scam kingpinleaves much less to imagination.

As media conjures up familiar images of flood disaster and as large parts ofGujarat brave another bout of nature’s fury, the curious question is whetherdisaster preparedness could have been more precise and timely? Conversely, hasn’tdisaster management inherited inefficiency and corruption to remain chaotic? Asfresh disasters charter unfamiliar territories at a fiery pace, the out-of-sync`disaster management’ is found wanting in getting its act together.

No surprise, therefore, that human misery continues to grab headlines whilethe cause-effect relationship of disasters skips careful diagnosis. Could theintensity and magnitude of recent floods in Gujarat be predicted? Weren’theavy rains in Gujarat during the past two years indicative of the worst ahead?With the Indian Meteorological Department restricting itself to tracking monsooncalendar and in recording rainfall distribution, predicting the location andextent of impending disasters remains unattended.

Monsoon clouds have traditionally been seen with awe and hope in a largeagrarian economy, growth rate being measured on their timeliness anddistribution. Sensing less than average rainfall, Prime Minister Dr ManmohanSingh had informed the National Development Council that agriculture sector maycontribute less than its projected 4 per cent share to the country’s annualgrowth rate. But it’s time to rethink our cardboard theory: the monsoons notonly spur ‘growth’ but can fuel `disaster’ too.

Amply demonstrated during the two recent disasters, floods in high reaches ofHimachal Pradesh and in the unsuspecting plains of Gujarat, monsoon aggregationin selected pockets of the country can no longer be termed freak. The fact thatmonsoon currents traversed the distance between eastern fringes of Uttar Pradeshand western extreme of Rajasthan in less than ten days, against the usualthirty, may hold explanation for the unprecedented monsoon turbulence.

Tragically, sharp increase in the unpredictability of the monsoons has yet toprop serious scientific enquiry in the country. On the contrary, by bringingdisaster management under the fold of high-profile Ministry of Home Affairs thegovernment seems to have fulfilled its obligations towards monsoons-relateddisaster preparedness and management as well. Officials in the ministry doacknowledge that such changes in institutional structure rarely address the coreissues.

Experts argue that leaving disaster management within the purview of theMinistry of Home Affairs may obscure the understanding of the criticaldimensions of the crises that are interdisciplinary in nature. What hasunplanned urban growth at the rate of 5 per cent per annum; steady decline inforest cover to mere 10 per cent; and land use changes on 20 per cent of country’sland mass got to do with disaster management in general and disasterpreparedness in particular?

Dismissed as a freak incident, the unprecedented high temperature of 54degree Celcius in the small town of Talcher in Orissa may be as remotely relatedto disaster management. As the world debates the causes of global warming, thereis growing consensus that ‘abrupt climatic changes’ are commonplace and thatthese must be heard as forewarnings to the impending disasters. That rapidurbanization and land use changes promote such changes hold greater currencyamongst environmental scientists.

Much as the currently underway G-8 Summit discusses global warming in lightof the unusual flood-drought conditions in many parts of the developed world,India can no longer take recourse to the fact that its high profile ministry isin the forefront of disaster management. The fact that the current nature andmagnitude of disasters is not only complicated but may well go beyond theconventional disaster management practices are reason enough for a paradigmshift in disaster preparedness.

So far, Indian meteorologists have been pathetically slow in responding todramatic changes in predicting environmental turbulence along restrictedcorridors. That each of the large town and/or village clusters present amicrocosm of impending environmental change has yet to catch the imagination ofthe scientists and the government alike. Not without reason therefore the recentfloods in Sutlej river and the widespread floods in Gujarat escape seriousattention.

Unless the country enlarges its disaster protocol to include the Ministry ofScience & Technology as well as the Ministry of Environment & Forests,deploying forces for fire-fighting, as it were, will always remain inadequate.As nature churns disasters with increasing frequency and at fresh new locations,conventional disaster management may well leave trails of death and destructionbehind. It is time disasters get viewed comprehensively and not from the myopicview of doling out relief packets.

Formerly with the World Bank, DrSudhirendar Sharma is a water expert and is attached with the Delhi-basedthe Ecological Foundation.