FLOODPREVENTIONINTHECOUNTRY

Floods are natural calamity that the country faces almost every year, in varying degrees of magnitude. The occurrence of floods can be attributed to various factors, including wide variations in rainfall both in time and space with frequent departures from the normal pattern, inadequate carrying capacities of rivers, river bank erosion and silting of river beds, landslides, poor natural drainage in flood prone areas, snowmelt and glacial lake out-bursts. 


    The Government undertakes assessment of flood prone area in the country from time to time. In the year 1980, RashtriyaBarhAyog (RBA) estimated the total area liable to floods in the country as 40 Million Hectare (mha). The extent of maximum area affected by floods in any year during 1953-2010 as per the Working Group Report (2011) on Flood Management and Region Specific Issues for XII Plan is 49.815 mha, the State-wise break up of which is given at Annexure-I. 

For scientific assessment of flood prone areas in India, Ministry has constituted an Expert Committee under Chairman, Central Water Commission (CWC). The Expert Committee has delineated layers of the aggregated extent of inundation area of States/ UTs on GIS maps and has sent this to respective States/UTs for undertaking Ground Truth Verification.

    Flood management comes under the purview of the States and therefore, the schemes for flood control and erosion control are formulated and implemented by concerned States as per their priority. The Union Government supplements the efforts of the States by providing technical guidance and promotional financial assistance for management of floods in critical areas. During XI Plan, Government of India had launched Flood Management Programme (FMP) for providing central assistance to States for works related to flood management and erosion control, etc. with an outlay of Rs 8,000 Cr which continued during XII Plan with an outlay of Rs 10,000 Cr. Financial assistance was also provided to the States/UTs for undertaking flood management works project under the scheme “River Management Activities and Works related to Border Areas” during XII Plan. The “Flood Management Programme (FMP)” and “River Management Activities & Works related to Border Areas (RMBA)” under operation during XII Five Year Plan were merged as “Flood Management and Border Areas Programme (FMBAP)” for the period 2017-18 to 2019-20 and further extended upto March, 2021. So far Central Assistance amounting to Rs. 6447.76 Crores has been released to Union Territories/State Government under this Programme. The central assistance released to States under FMBAP during last five years is at Annexure II.


This Information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti, ShriBishweswarTudu in a written  reply in RajyaSabha today.

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ANNEXURE-I

State -wise Maximum Area Affected by Floods in any year during 1953-2010

(Release ID: 1783531)
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