Essays

Introduction. Floods occur every year in some or other parts of India. During the rainy season rivers cause terrible floods which destroy life and property. The flooded rivers cause great destruction. They destroy crops, villages and cause loss of human and cattle population.

The Northern part of India suffers annually. The Northern part of India suffers most on account of floods. In Bihar the Kasi, in U.P. the Ganga and the Yamuna and in Assam the Brahmaputra cause floods which bring ruin to the people every year. The rivers in the South seldom cause floods.

Causes of the floods in India. There are many causes of floods in India. One of them, which are the main cause, is the heavy rainfall during monsoon season. Heavy rains cause floods because the rivers overflow when rain water of the neighboring area flows into the rivers. Another cause of floods is melting of snow in the Himalayan

Region. This results in the discharge of water in several rivers which cause floods in the adjoining area. The third cause of floods is silting in the river beds. Sometimes there are landslides in the hills. They

Cause debris fall in the rivers resulting in great floods. These causes are natural and beyond the control of human efforts.

How to check floods. There are ways and means with the help of which we can partially check floods. Floods cause great loss of life and property. The poor people in India are unable to bear heavy loss caused by floods. The areas which are flood-prone is about 40 million hectares. Flood attacks in such area cause horrible destruction. They bring irreparable loss to our poor economy.

According to one expert view the check of flood lie in afforestation on large scale. Then we should have conservation programme throughout the country. A programme of reforest the Himalaya at great cost will prove very effective. Another means of controlling floods in the Gangetic plain would be to trap some of the early monsoon underground in artesian basis depleted during the preceeding dry season through groundwater lift for summer irrigation.

A National Programme in 1954. A National Programme for flood control measures was launched in 1954. It was divided into three parts - immediate, short term and long term. The immediate part was intensive collection of data and implementation of emergent flood control measures. The short term programme envisaged the construction of embankment, channel improvement and protection of (owns etc. The long term part envisaged the construction of storage reservoirs, establishing the benefits of already executed works and taking up additional works of embankment, river training works etc.

Conclusion. The Rastirya Barh Ayog estimated the total flood prone area in the country is 40 million hectares and the protectable area is 3.2 million hectares.