Lessons from Surat flood:an eye-opener report by IIM Ahmedabad
By Chandresh Vyas,
8th of August, 2008

Surat can never forget that day: 7th of August, 2006. A massive flood after release of water from Ukai dam had caused major human tragedy and property damage estimated at Rs 22,000 cr on that day. Look at some figures related to Surat flood at a glans:150 people died directly due to flood, 100 died due to Leptopirosis epidemic, 30,00,000 people affected, 1500 cattle died, direct industrial loss of 16,000 cr, loss of production 6,500 cr, loss of public infrastructure 2,500 cr, loss to diamond processing industries 2,600 cr, loss to textile processing industry 2,000 cr, loss to around 70,000 small and big shops 1,000 cr, structural damage to 6559 houses and 1262 houses completely destroyed!

Two years after Surat flood, IIM Ahmedabad‘s proffesor Dileep Mavalankar has published his eye-opener research report ‘Lessons from Massive Floods of 2006 in Surat City: A framework for Application of MS/OR Techniques to Improve Dam Management to Prevent Flood(Click here for full report in PDF).

Improve and modernize dam management:Says report

This 24 page very well studied guide-book like report for dam management in India says “When major dams including Ukai were planned and built in the 1960-70s “Decision Science” such as operation research, management sciences, computer sciences, weather prediction, Geographical Information System etc. were not so well developed as today. Then India was a poor country, with very low sciences and technology base. Technology institutes such as Indian Institute of Technology and management institutes such as Indian Institute of Management were in their infancy. Hence, dams were operated by simple thumbs rules, developed by civil engineers, codified in “Rule Books” for release of water based on dam level and date of the calendar, without taking into account various other relevant parameters and without use of sophisticated mathematical models.”

Following just 1970s ‘Rule Book’ is not enough

“Though India has invested money to prevent flood and drought through construction of large dams for last 50 years, it has failed to use scientific and modern decision support systems to take right decision at right time for dam management. Surat’s Ukai dam is still being managed using static ‘Rule Book’ originally developed in the 1970s. No modern OR/MS techniques or computer based modeling is used in dam management to reduce risk of flooding.” research report further quotes.

Concrete steps are suggested in report

Report has suggested some concrete steps and measures to prevent/control flood situations in future. Read full report(PDF) by clicking over given link above in the article.

-Surat flood related link on DeshGujarat
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-IIM Ahmedabad’s research related link on DeshGujarat
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