Lives, Homes And Crops Lost As Punjab Faces The Worst Flood In Decades

Veero Bai, 45, has been staying at a relief camp since August 26, after water from Sutlej river entered her home at Guddar Bhaini, a village near the India-Pakistan border in the Fazilka district of Punjab.

“The water was three feet high when we escaped, leaving behind all the big and small things we had acquired in all these years through daily wage work. Now, the water level is much higher, submerging the whole village,” she told Mongabay India. “I don’t know if we will ever be able to return and how liveable the place will be. We were displaced during the 2023 flood as well. It will better if the government allots us land at some other place so we don’t have to move every other year.”

Veero Bai’s neighbour Gagandeep Singh managed to move his cattle to the relief camp but is worried about the loss of the standing paddy crop on his five-acre land. “Last time (in 2023), we got a meagre compensation which was not enough to even bear the sowing expenses. I don’t know how things will turn out this time around,” he rued, adding that just four months ago in May, they had a stressful time as well, living in fear when tensions of conflict increased between India and Pakistan.

Punjab is facing its worst floods since 1988. Around 1,900 villages are submerged, causing the loss of 51 lives, damaging crop on 400,000 acres (1600 sq.km.) of land and impacting 384,000 people across seven districts. Cities like Ludhiana are drowning in their own domestic and industrial waste as the rivulets carrying sewage overflowed.

The state government has announced a compensation of ₹20,000 per acre of farmland and ₹400,000 for the families of those who lost their lives. It has allowed farmers to sell the sand that enters their fields. The state government has also sought ₹20,000 crores as financial relief from the Centre ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Punjab on September 9.

Most of the flooded areas in the state lie along river Ravi and the lower portions of Beas and Sutlej rivers, which swelled due to catastrophic rains in upstream catchment areas of Himachal Pradesh, which received 46% above normal rainfall this monsoon season till September 8. This triggered 95 flash floods and 136 major landslides that killed at least 203 people. Despite the presence of large reservoir dams on all three rivers, water volumes remained high and were compounded further by 55% above normal rainfall in the lower catchment areas in Punjab.

While the Indian army and teams of disaster response forces are engaged in rescue operations, a large number of volunteers, moved by SOS calls on social media, are fortifying the at-risk earthen bundhs (embankments) at several locations. Tractor trolleys carrying soil donated by villages from across Punjab, reach these embankments every day. “We don’t know these people or where they came from. They just arrived with soil to strengthen the bundh in our village which was about to give away,” said Jugraj Singh, whose 10 acres of farm land is currently submerged at Ghuram, a village near the wetland Harike, where Sutlej and Beas merge.

A number of trucks carrying food, medicines, and other essential items for the affected families are reaching flooded villages and relief camps, supplied by several social and religious organisations and individuals who are also running community kitchens for the displaced families and volunteers. “These organisations and individuals are keeping us afloat because the state administration has mostly been missing. Greater support, however, will be required when the water recedes and those displaced would need to repair their homes and recover the fields,” Jugraj Singh told Mongabay India.

At the embankment near Kaawanwali in Fazilka district, rescue teams are operating boats for people stranded in around 20 villages, sending them cooked food, tarpaulin sheets and medicines, besides transporting people who need medical care. “There are many families who have sent the women, elderly and children to stay at the relief camps or with relatives. But many of the men have stayed behind for fear of theft. Their homes are either on the upper part of the village or they are staying on the upper floors,” says Sukhjinder Mahesari, a member of All India Youth Federation, who has been volunteering to strengthen the bundh and offering relief material to the affected. “But the boats don’t operate at night. So, if there is a medical emergency at night, no support can reach them.”

Many have also kept their cattle with them. “The relief camps don’t have enough sheds and the sun is very bright. Many of our livestock are standing in water or in muck which might lead to foot and mouth disease among them,” said Cheema Singh from Mahatamnagar village. “Though dry fodder is available, there is no green fodder to feed them as the fields are submerged.”

Activists and politicians, meanwhile, question the operation of big reservoir dams, the lack of preparation for monsoon and slow response of the government in offering relief to the affected.

The dam problem

The management of dams is a highly sensitive issue in Punjab, which has been seeking a greater role in the allocation of water from the rivers running through its administrative boundaries and the release of excess water in times of flood. Currently, the Centre-controlled Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) operates Bhakra and Pong dams, from where water is shared by the riparian states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, and non-riparian regions of Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chandigarh. The Punjab government manages Ranjit Sagar Dam on river Ravi.

In 1988, the high rainfall and subsequent opening of floodgates of Bhakra and Pong dams led to submergence of 2,500 villages and death of 600 people in Punjab. Questions are again being raised on the efficiency of BBMB, with court petitions and police cases filed against the board.

“There is a clear mismanagement by dam authorities. Both Bhakra and Pong dams were past prudent storage by August 20, but the outflow of water was kept very low despite heavy rainfall in the catchment areas and forecast of more heavy rainfall days in both Himachal Pradesh and Punjab,” said Himanshu Thakkar, the coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).

“They had to eventually release heavy quantities of water from August 26 onwards, when Punjab was already facing floods due to local rainfall. Ranjit Sagar dam also released more water than the inflow from August 27 onwards, which technically means it contributed to flooding instead of moderating it,” Thakkar added.

The release of water from Ranji Sagar Dam damaged two gates of Madhopur barrage, that led to submergence of large tracts in Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts.

In a press conference on September 5, BBMB chairman claimed that a technical committee, comprising chief engineers from member states, representatives from the Central Water Commission, India Meteorological Department, and the agriculture department, took decisions on the release of water based on rule curves (guidelines for reservoir storage) and the carrying capacity of rivers. The scientific data and the decision making process, however, remain opaque.

“The least the authorities can do is put all the information related to dam operations, including rule curve, daily inflow, outflow, storage, rainfall and downstream carrying capacity balance of the flood flows, in the public domain,” Thakkar stated. “All the members of the technical committee are clearly responsible for the disaster and only an independent judicial inquiry can uncover the truth.”

The Himachal Pradesh government has already filed an FIR against BBMB, accusing it of releasing excess water without warning that triggered flood-like situation in two regions of Kangra district.

Public Action Committee (PAC) Mattewara, a group of activists in Punjab, has also filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal (NGT), seeking audit on the working of BBMB and the Punjab government on flood management and prevention, through an independent expert committee. “Instead of reducing risk, our dams have worsened floods. This is not just nature’s fury, it is human negligence. Transparency and accountability are the only way forward,” Jaskirat Singh, a member of PAC Mattewara, told Mongabay India.

Drainage, desilting and embankments

In July this year, the Punjab government claimed that it had spent ₹276 crores on flood preparedness and the state was ready to tackle any flood-like situation. Water resources minister Barinder Kumar Goyal said several projects had been completed for desilting of drains, strengthening of embankments and construction of check dams. However, activists question these claims after the recent flood.

“The illegal sand mining in and along the rivers, encroachments over river floodplains and other natural water bodies and failure in strengthening the bundhs after floods of 2023 resulted in worsening the situation,” said Jaskirat Singh.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has, in the past, given directions to the state government to check illegal sand mining and to ban mining on river Ravi, highlighting the ecological and security concerns arising from it. The issue of encroachments on Sutlej floodplain has also reached NGT, which slapped a fine on government officials for being evasive with information on the offenders.

In upstream Himachal Pradesh, spurt in construction activities, hydropower projects and highway expansion have all led to a rise in the number of landslides besides muck dumping in the rivers. All these activities have accelerated silt deposition in Gobind Sagar Lake, the reservoir of Bhakra dam, reducing its capacity by 25%, claimed the BBMB chairperson during the press conference. The board is now considering desilting the reservoir, but some experts say it is not a practical solution due to the high cost of transportation and lack of space to dump it.

“Instead, we need stricter environmental norms for developmental projects and better policies to protect forest cover, which will increase water absorption capacity of the mountains and reduce floods, landslides and silt deposition in the dams,” said Ramesh Kanwar, professor of agricultural and water resources engineering at Iowa State University, U.S., who served as vice-chancellor of a private university in Punjab. “Small reservoirs can be constructed in the watershed, which will not only cushion against floods but also ensure water security in the dry season.”

With projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warning of a 20% surge in extreme rainfall events for the Indian subcontinent due to warming climate, protection of catchment areas, floodplains, and riverine ecosystem, are vital.

Meanwhile, for those who survived the current floods, immediate solutions are a pressing need. “I think it will be another month before we can go back home. Unless there is a stronger embankment near the village, we can’t expect a brighter future,” Veero Bai said.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India)