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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

23/10/23 08:00 AM IST

Dam Safety Act

In News
  • A new Dam Safety Act (DSA) was passed in late 2021.
  • On October 4 this year, a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in North Sikkim’s South Lhonak Lake washed away one of the biggest hydropower projects in India, the Teesta III dam at Chungthang.
  • Reports have since revealed there were no early warning systems, no risk assessment or preventive measures in place as required under the Act.
Dam Safety Act
  • The Act listed key responsibilities and mandated that national and State-level bodies be established for implementation.
  • It said a National Committee on Dam Safety would oversee dam safety policies and regulations; a National Dam Safety Authority would be charged with implementation and resolving State-level disputes;
  • the Chairman of the Central Water Commission (CWC) would head dam safety protocols at the national level; a State Committee on Dam Safety (SCDS) and State Dam Safety Organisation (SDSO) would be set up.

Obligations of States
  • Provisions require States to:
  • classify dams based on hazard risk,
  • conduct regular inspections,
  • create emergency action plans,
  • institute emergency flood warning systems, and undertake safety reviews and period risk assessment studies.
  • States were asked to report and record incidents of dam failures.
  • Until now, no statutory provision required systemic reporting of failures and no single agency was tasked with tracking this data.
  • The CWC keeps a record but the list is not updated regularly.
Punishment
  • Failure to comply with any provision of the Act is punishable with imprisonment and/or fines.
  • If such obstruction or refusal to comply with directions results in loss of lives or imminent danger, the entity shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years.
  • In February 2023, the Sikkim High Court ordered the Gati Hydropower Project company to pay ₹70 lakh to two widowed mothers, for non-compliance with the Dam Safety Act.
Challenges
  • The DSA does not promote risk-based decision-making and fails to incentivise transparency.
  • The frequency and scale of such disasters reveal a pattern of neglect.
  • A robust DSA should allow different stakeholders to access information easily, but India’s framework falls short.
  • Dam safety is a public purpose function.
  • Everything about dam safety, functions of all the institutions and committees and authorities, their reports, decisions minutes and agendas, everything should be promptly available to the public.
  • However, nothing is in the public domain.
  • Periodic reviews are often not conducted or if they are, their findings are not easily available in the public domain
  • The Act requires dam builders to conduct comprehensive dam safety evaluations. However, there is no standardisation of how the failure is analysed and reported.
Dam safety is a function of many parts
  • designing and constructing dams that adhere to safety margins,
  • maintaining and operating them per guidelines,
  • recording data in real-time in an accessible format,
  • forecasting hazardous events and instituting emergency plans, etc.
Hazard profiling and regular assessment mandated by the Act
  • Hazard risk fluctuates at the slightest touch, responding to climate change, urbanisation, and the way people/companies use water or where they are located.
  • Periodic reviews are expected to bring forth fresh inundation maps and new rule curves (which determine the capacity of dam reservoirs).
  • All of these contribute towards the safety of the downstream areas.
  • The Act requires dam builders to conduct comprehensive dam safety evaluations, but “there is no standardisation of how the failure is analysed and reported.
Source- The Hindu

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