Kochi: The state government has told Kerala High Court that the findings of the amicus curiae it had appointed to probe into the Kerala floods - that the state government was responsible for the disaster - had no basis as two credible scientific assessments of the floods by the Central Water Commission and IIT Madras have categorically stated that extremely heavy rainfall is the only cause of such severe floods.
In an affidavit submitted to the court, the government said the amicus curiae overlooked the difference between flood management and dam management.
“While dams with sufficient design features and capacities may be used as a tool for flood risk reduction, the management of dams in itself cannot prevent flooding,” the affidavit said.
The severity of floods are categorised based on three parameters: flood inundation depth, flood water velocity, flood inundation time period.
“The dams that are not primarily designed for flood control cannot significantly influence any of the above parameters in an extreme rainfall event,” it said. “The dams of Kerala were built and designed in the times prior to the evolution of the latest standards for emergency management.”
The statement accused the amicus curiae of exceeding his brief. It said of the four reports the amicus curiae relied, those by the Central Water Commission and by IIT Madras were mathematical modelling based studies, and that it was wrong on the part of the amicus curiae to compare them with a commentary that appeared in a political magazine and another that was peer review rejected.
It rejected the contention that flood control is the primary responsibility of the state saying the National Disaster Management Plan 2016 (NDMP 2016) prepared under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 laid specific responsibilities on the government of India in flood control/management. “The government of India and the government of Kerala are equally responsible for floods and dam management under a fiduciary relationship,” it said.
The state government effectively responded to the floods, which “this very court itself has acknowledged and so has bodies of United Nations,” it said.
It rejected the contention of the amicus curiae that the state government had not prepared flood maps and said the government had indeed published the flood and landslide susceptibility maps in November 2017 in the website of Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA).
“It was for the first time in the country that any state published such maps in formats that enable any individual with a smart phone to use Google Earth to identify whether he is in a flood susceptible or landslide susceptible location,” it said.
The fact that reservoirs held back much of the flood waters that it received and only released the quintessential amount to avoid any possibility of dam break has been overlooked by the amicus curiae, it said.
“All necessary public safety instructions on a daily basis were issued in bilingual formats, pictographs, announcements and scrolls in electronic media, the details of which were produced in the counter affidavit,” it claimed.
