People of North Karnataka are yet to come to terms with the magnitude of the flood damage they had to face this year in August with both the state and Maharashtra receiving unprecedented rainfall. Though dam authorities deny any lapse on their part when it comes to water management and blame it on unusually heavy rains, water experts feel man-made reasons should also be blamed for the colossal tragedy. All the reservoirs touched the brim in 5-6 days due to heavy rainfall in the Western. What made things worse was the crucial prediction of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which had forecast a below normal monsoon, prompting the dam authorities in both states to store water to ensure their reservoirs were full to meet any contingency during summer. Dam engineers claim that the heavy accumulation of silt in the tributaries of the Krishna too led to excess inflow into the dams in Karnataka. Irrigation experts contend that the authorities of various reservoirs also failed to alert villagers living downstream of the dams and backwater areas worsening the damage. But many irrigation experts feel the damage due to natural calamities can be minimized if the dam height is raised to enable storage of 15 lakh cusecs water. The demand for raising the dam height has not been met as the project will submerge 22 more villages and 1.20 lakh acres of land. Experts claim that raising the Almatti dam height as per the recommendation of the Krishna Water Dispute Tribunal will not only help withstand the floods to some extent, but also enable farmers to combat recurrent droughts. But, the rehabilitation of the displaced people is the big challenge for the government if the dam height is increased. #floodfury #almattidam #floods #reservoir #floodmanagement #tahaan #tahaanefforts https://www.instagram.com/p/B2juNxQg2lQ/?igshid=f8zykcfwgax5
