Uma Bharti to take stock of UP, Bihar floods next week

Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharti chaired a high level meeting to review the flood situation in the country and the actions being taken at the national level in New Delhi today.

She will visit Uttar Pradesh on 21st August and Bihar on 25th August for discussions on flood related issues with the State Governments.

She is also planning to visit Uttarakhand in connection with India-Nepal Pancheshwar Multipurpose project.

The officials briefed her about the flood situation in various parts of the country and the pro-active actions taken by the concerned organisations under the Ministry in mitigating the effect of floods.

The Minister was also briefed that Central Water Commission (CWC) had taken pro-active steps during the floods by way of issuing around 3200 flood forecasts to all concerned user agencies which have been extremely beneficial to the district administration in timely evacuation and saving of lives of millions of people.

Further, the Ministry issued seven specific district-wise advisories on anticipated floods and dam-wise advisories for water release wherever applicable to facilitate early National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) deployment and operation of reservoir gates.

Another step taken by the Ministry, since June 2017 is that three day advance flood advisories based on rainfall-runoff model have been made available for all the 19 river basins online, for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Uma Bharti directed that all the concerned organizations under the Ministry shall extend all possible help to the flood affected people.

The Minister said Government of India is having continuous dialogue with the Government of Nepal at various levels to mitigate devastation caused by the flood from the rivers coming from Nepal through planning of various storage dams jointly with Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project on river Sarada; Sapta Kosi High dam Project and Sun Kosi Storage-cum- Diversion scheme are proposed in the Sapta Kosi Basin.

A proposal for construction of single-stage Siang Upper Multipurpose Storage is under "consideration" of the Ministry.