Dams Safety in India

In News

• A new Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report has warned that Gandhi Sagar Dam on Chambal River in Madhya Pradesh is in need of immediate repair.

Key Findings of Report

• Problems faced by dams:
  • Absence of regular checks 
  • non-functional instruments
    • Gandhi Sagar Dam was among the few of national importance to be instrumented but many of the instruments have been non-functional for years.
  • choking of uplift pressure and drainage hole in the gallery 
  • non-functional piezometer, 
  • switchboard 
  • plumb line
• Breaching limits: 
  • Gandhi Sagar Dam was constructed in 1960 to provide drinking water to several districts of Rajasthan and generate 115 megawatts of electricity. 
  • It has been breached several times in recent years, causing flooding in downstream areas
• Categories:
  • There is one dam in Category I but Report didn’t name it. 
  • As many as 27 other smaller dams of MP were in Category II.
• Government organizations:
  • The state dam safety organisation (SDSO), the department responsible for its maintenance, did not comply with recommendations by the Central Water Commission (CWC) and Dam Safety Inspection Pane (DSIP) on remedial measures.
• Severe threat in rainy season:
  • The dam is “still under extreme threat during the rainy season”, despite warnings and recommendations. 
  • Given the fact that millions of people stay in the downstream area of the dam, any breach / overtopping of the dam can have disastrous consequences.

Challenges with Old Dams

• Erratic rainfall:
  • Indian dams are very old and built according to the rainfall pattern of the past decades.
  • Erratic rainfall in recent years has left them vulnerable, because of which these problems are happening.
• Implementation of the Act:
  • The Dam Safety Act 2021 passed in the Rajya Sabha with much fanfare earlier this month doesn’t elicit much hope.
  • The act will be implemented by current authorities.
  • So, essentially the idea of accountability being fixed to change the scenario will hardly be addressed. 
  • The act, thus, will not really be of much help

Need of Dam Safety in India

• The country has over 5,200 large dams. While some dams are located in a state but are owned by some other state without any fixed responsibility for their maintenance.
• In addition to these dams, there are thousands of other small and medium dams in the country. Of the total large dams, 293 dams are more than 100 years old and 1,041 dams are more than 50 years old.
• In the absence of a proper legal framework, safety and maintenance of these large numbers of dams are a cause of concern. The dam safety bill, 2019 provides for proper monitoring inspection, operation and maintenance of all specified dams in the country.

Image Courtesy: ToI 

Government Efforts

• Advisory: CWC advised for the revival of the failed instruments five years ago. 
• Radical modern changes: The body had suggested equipping the dam with more instruments like joint meter, strong Motion Accelerograph on top of the dam for checking ground shaking due to earthquake along with six survey targets.
• Funding: Rs.1.35 crore was sanctioned to carry out the advised instrumentation and repair in July 2019. But the department did not initiate the revival of instruments or cleaning of drains even by 2019.
• Modern information systems: The government is equipping the dams with information systems like rainfall alerts, flood alerts, and preparing emergency action plans to avoid all sorts of mishaps.
• Dam Safety Act: Recently, the Rajya Sabha passed the landmark Dam Safety Bill (2019), paving the way for enactment of the Dam Safety Act in the country. 

Way Ahead

• The following functions related to Dam Safety aspects need to be strengthened:
  • New acceptability criteria need to be evolved for the present and future dams.
  • Dam safety reviews and MIS for Dams including Dam registers online databases.
  • Technology acquisitions and dissemination on Dam safety to State Govts / Organisations.
  • Dam break studies, glacial break studies and preparation of emergency Action Plans
  • Monitoring implementation of Dam Safety Legislation
  • Technology upgradation for rehabilitation of distressed dams in efficient manner
  • Setup, through legislations, State and Central Dam Safety Services

Source: DTE