‘River regulation zone required to stop floods’
A river regulation zone (RRZ) notification should be top priority for the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) to stop annual flooding of rivers in the sub-continent.
Manoj Misra, convenor of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, has written to environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan highlighting the devastating floods in Mahanadi river system which could have been prevented if the ministry had convened a “suitable legal regulatory instrument” that would help ensure river beds remained safe from large scale encroachment.
In Orissa, the state government has had to evacuate nearly one lakh residents from low-lying areas with floods having affecting 2,550 villages and 13 towns. This year alone has seen major floods in the state of UP, Punjab, Bihar, Assam and Manipur with major rivers, including Ganga, Sutlej, Kosi and Brahmaputra rivers, flowing in spate.
Former environment minister Jairam Ramesh had gone public in his admission that neither the Games Village nor the Akshardham Temple should have been allowed to have been constructed on Jamuna river bed. “The manner in which the Yamuna riverbed has been devastated by constructions should be a wake-up call for us,” Mr Ramesh had said. An expert committee had been created by the MoEF during his tenure to prepare a draft on the RRZ which was expected to be along the lines of the coastal regulation zone notification of 2011, which will be governed by the Environment Protection Act.
Sources in the MoEF admit that following the death of Swami Nigaman-anda, who had fasted unto death to stop illegal quarrying along the Ganga river, the minister is keen that the expert committee on the RRZ submit its draft at the earliest.
Post new comment