117 dead in Assam floods till now this year; Toll over 5 years 880: MHA informs Rajya Sabha

New Delhi [India], August 2 (ANI): A total of 880 casualties have been reported as a result of devastating floods in Assam from 2019 to July 25 this year, the Ministry of Home Affairs has said.

Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha by MP Sushmita Dev, Minister of State of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai on Thursday stated that, as per information furnished by the State Government of Assam, 880 casualties have been reported due to floods in Assam from 2019 to July 25 this year.

“157 casualties reported in 2019, 190 in 2020, 73 in 2021, 278 in 2022, 65 in 2023 and 117 in this year up to July 25,” Rai said in the Upper House of Parliament.

He further said that the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have prepared a state-level flood hazard zonation atlas for Assam using satellite data of 1998-2023. This serves as non-structural resources for flood hazard management, for developmental planning.

“North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC)/ Department of Space (DOS) has generated River Atlas consisting of a geospatial database of Brahmaputra River in Assam, including river and drainage network, embankment locations, river gauge locations, road/ rail network etc. at 1:5000 scale. This database is helpful for the planning and management of water resources,” the MoS of Home Affairs said.

“NESAC, Department of Space (DOS) has also identified 271 wetlands, which can be utilized for channelising excess water from rivers, including the Brahmaputra River, during monsoon season. NESAC has also developed a Flood Early Warning System (FLEWS) for the Brahmaputra basin in the state of Assam based on numerical rainfall prediction and a physics-based distributed hydrological model in the Geographic Information System (GIS) domain,” he said.

Rai further said that alerts are provided to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) with a lead time of 24 to 36 hours.

“Central Water Commission (CWC) issues flood forecasts as a non-structural measure of flood management, to concerned State Governments at identified locations. CWC also issues inflow forecasts to identified reservoirs for proper reservoir regulation. CWC prepares 7-day advisory flood forecasts through basin-specific mathematical models using India Meteorological Department (IMD) weather forecast products and near real-time satellite rainfall estimates. These flood advisories are disseminated through the web Portal https://aff.india-water.gov.in/home.php to stakeholders. In addition to this, CWC has 67 hydrological observation sites in the Barak basin and 173 hydrological observation sites in the Brahmaputra basin,” he said.

The MoS of Home Affairs further said that the Assam government has informed that, the Water Resources Department has been implementing flood and River bank erosion management schemes as per the recommendation of the Rashtriya Barh Ayog (RBA).

“The Department has been implementing Short and Medium term solutions to the perennial problem of flood and erosion in the State. The Water Resources Department of the Government of Assam has protected 16.50 lakh hectares of flood-affected land, constructed 4532 km of embankments, 1280 numbers of anti-erosion and town protection works, 122 numbers of major sluices and 545 numbers of minor sluices and 1047.85 km of raising and strengthening of existing dyke till the year 2023-24,” the Minister said.

On the other hand, the Centre has released Rs 503.10 crore to Assam under the centre’s share of SDRF in 2019-20, Rs 617.60 crore in 2020-21, Rs 617.60 crore in 2021-22, Rs 648.80 crore in 2022-23, Rs 680.80 crore in 2023-24.

The Centre also released Rs 44.37 crore from NDRF to Assam in 2020-21, Rs 250 crore in 2022-23; Rs 154.40 crore under the centre’s share of SDMF in 2020-21, Rs 154.40 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 162.20 crore in 2023-24.