ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE : NATURAL RESOURCES 43
(ii) Institutional reforms promoting, attitudes and behaviour, and the full participation
of women and all levels in sector institutions.
(iii) Community management of services, backed by measures to strengthen local
institutions in implementing and sustaining water and sanitation programmes.
(iv) Sound financial practices, achieved through better management of existing assests
and widespread use of appropriate technologies.
Note : Courtesy Research and Reference Division Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Govt. of India.
FLOOD MANAGEMENT
Floods are annual features in one part of the Country or the other causing damage to
the crops and property, destruction of communication and at times heavy loss of human-life
and livestock.
National Flood Control Programm
After heavy floods in 1954, the Government of India announced a National Flood
Management Programme. The programme was divided into these phases immediate, short-
term and long-term:
(i) The immediate phase was adopted for intensive collection of data and execution
of emerge flood protection measures.
(ii) The short-term measures for flood protection include construction of Spurs and
embankments of select sites.
(iii) The construction of storages, reservoirs on rivers/tributaries and additional
embankments were the main long-term measure adopted. Out of the total
geographical area of 329 million ha of the country, area prone to floods and area
which can be provided reasonable degree of protection as assesses by R.B.A. are 40
million ha. and 32 million ha. respectively.
Even after the implementation of short and long-term measures, providing a certain
degree of protection against floods to the flood prone areas, the flood loss continued to show
increasing trend. More realistic and relational approach for flood management under the
existing resources contains would be to strive for a reasonable degree of protection against
floods by structural measures and supplement it by resorting to non-structural measures.
MEASURES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
(1) Since the launching of the National Flood Control Programme, an expenditure of
about Rs. 2710 crore have been incurred on the Flood Control Sector till the end
of the Seventh Plan. In the Seventh Plan, an Approval Outlay of Rs. 947.39 crore
has a share of Rs. 797.43 crore by States and Union Territories and Rs. 149.93
crore by the Centre.
(2) Since 1954 nearly 15,467 km of new embankments, 30,199 km of drainage channels,
765 town-protection works and raising the level of about 4,705 villages have been
completed upto March, 1989. These achievements have been executed at an