A year after Uttarakhand floods: No disaster mgmt policy to combat nature's fury

Govt has completely forgotten to develop its own disaster management policy in wake of repeated disasters striking hill state since 2010

After the catastrophic floods that caused widespread devastation in Uttarakhand last year, the state government seems to have learnt no lesson.

The government seems to have forgotten to develop its own disaster management policy in the wake of repeated disasters striking the hill state since 2010. The rain-related disasters in the form of floods, landslides and cloudbursts have created havoc in the state causing enormous loss to human lives and state’s economy.

“It is very unfortunate that we still don’t have any disaster management policy of the state,” admitted a top government official.

State Revenue Minister Yashpal Arya said: “We should develop our own disaster management policy in view of the numerous natural disasters hitting our state.”

Experts say there should also be a broad Himalayan policy, after the Uttarakhand deluge. So far, the government has not done any work on this front. But the discussions for such policy had begun at a time when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister.  

“We had discussed at that time to develop a common Himalayan policy involving not only India but other Himalayan border countries like China and Pakistan also,” said Avadash Kaushal, a renowned social activist and a proponent of hydel projects.  

But since then, the discussions have only remained confined to rooms and nothing concrete has come out both at the central and state level.  

Even on the issue of hydel projects, various expert reports have given divergent views even as neighbouring China and Bhutan take lead in the hydropower sector.

In the wake of the natural disasters striking Uttarakhand repeatedly, the demand for a separate Himalayan policy dealing with natural calamities, safeguarding the interests of local people and enhancing the quality of eco-systems, has gained momentum. For the past few years, social activists and environmentalists in Uttarakhand have been advocating such a policy. They are also not averse to the idea of having an international Himalayan policy.

During the UPA regime, the centre had evinced interest in preparing an action plan for Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, crisscrossed by the Himalayas that separate the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan plateau. But, thereafter, nothing substantial has come out on the issue.

Now, the demand has come to the fore once again. "We must prepare a detailed Himalayan policy which answers all the queries related to disasters," said social activist Anil Prakash Joshi, the founder of Hesco, a Dehradun-based non-government organisation working in the Himalayan region.

Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (UEPPCB), in 2004, prepared the "state of the environment report" that dealt with the most important environmental issues such as state planning, and a separate environment policy. The development planning processes need to integrate environmental considerations and concepts of sustainability, in order to become truly responsive to people's needs, while preserving the environment, said C V S Negi, former member-secretary of UEPPCB, during whose tenure, the "state of the environment report" was prepared. With nature playing the antagonist’s role in the hill state, the report proposed the separation of regulatory and policy making functions of the state and integrating environment considerations into the development policy process.

“We will welcome any policy that strikes a balance between the environment and the development. Issues like haphazard growth, water shortage, rapid migration, unemployment should be taken into account into the future policy,” said Kishore Upadhayay, state  Congress president.