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, etc. Central Water Commission (CWC) is the nodal Organisation entrusted with the task of flood forecasting & early flood warnings in the country. Presently, CWC issues flood forecasts for 331 forecasting stations (199 river level forecast stations & 132 dam/ barrage inflow forecast stations). These stations cover 20 major river basins in 23 States & 2 Union Territories. As per flood forecasting network of CWC, during the last 3 years, in addition to existing flood prone states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, extreme floods (water level above previous Highest Flood Level) were witnessed in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan due to excess to large excess rainfall in these states combined with extremely heavy rainfall in short duration.

National Water Development Agency (NWDA) under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has been entrusted with work to undertake studies and prepare reports for Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) as per National Perspective Plan (NPP). Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) Programme envisages transfer of water from surplus basins to deficit ones and this will help in mitigating the effect of floods and droughts. National Water Development Agency (NWDA) identified 30 links (16 under Peninsular Component & 14 under Himalayan Component) for preparation of Feasibility Reports (FRs). The implementation of National Perspective Plan would provide benefits of 25 million ha of irrigation from surface waters, 10 million ha by increased use of ground waters, raising the ultimate irrigation potential from 140 million ha to 175 million ha and generation of 34 million KW of power, apart from the incidental benefits of flood control, drought mitigation, navigation, water supply, fisheries, salinity and pollution control etc The Government is pursuing the inter-linking of rivers (ILR) program in a consultative manner and accorded top priority.

Water resources projects are planned, funded, executed and maintained by the State Governments from their own resources for serving various purposes like irrigation, drinking water. flood control, hydropower etc. Ministry of Jal Shkati through its Schemes like Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana-Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme, National Projects/Special Projects, Flood Management and Border Areas Programme, etc. extends technical and promotional financial assistance to the States/UTs for the taking up such projects.

This Information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written  reply in Lok Sabha today.

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BY/AS