DEHRADUN: Four days after raging waters buried half of Dharali village in Uttarkashi, experts have stressed the need to study the existing settlements located on the river banks or in the flood plains.
They say that the Dharali disaster should not be seen as an isolated case.
Dr. Sushil Kumar, former senior scientist at the Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, said, “Now the time has come to study all those areas where large settlements have come up on the headlands of rivers and streams.”
Headlands are the plains situated on the banks of the river which are covered by floods from time to time. These plains are usually made up of soil, silt, sand and gravel deposited by the river.
Due to the high amount of nutrients, this land is fertile, which makes it very useful for agriculture and because of this, villages and settlements are also established in these areas, but they are often at risk of floods.
Many scientists including Dr. Kumar say that the debris-laden water stream that hit Dharali was on its original path and destroyed all the hotels, homestays, restaurants and houses that came in its way.
In view of the boom in tourism in the last few years, dozens of hotels, restaurants and homestays have mushroomed in Dharali and most of the buildings destroyed in the disaster were built in violation of environmental rules on the banks of the Khirgad seasonal river, they said.
This disaster, which struck on August 5, turned a beautiful stop on the way to Gangotri Dham into a high pile of rubble in the blink of an eye.
Locals say the government also turns a blind eye to violation of norms in environmentally sensitive areas, including a ban on new construction along the Bhagirathi riverbank.
In 2023, a large building of a training academy collapsed like a pack of cards amid heavy floods in the Song River in Maldevta area of Dehradun.
Experts say that the building was constructed on the river bank in gross violation of environmental norms.
Environmentalist Anoop Nautiyal said that the most glaring example of violation of environmental norms in construction is present in Dehradun where the Uttarakhand Assembly building has been built right on the banks of the Rispana river.
In the last few years, dozens of colonies including Bhagat Singh Colony have been built by encroaching on the banks of the Rispana and Bindal rivers in Dehradun.
The locals have alleged that in most cases, government officials are in collusion with land mafia and buildings are constructed on the vacant land.
Many petitions have been filed in the Uttarakhand High Court regarding the damage to the environment due to illegal construction in Dehradun, Rishikesh and other areas.
The High Court has also directed the state government to remove encroachment from the land along the banks of Rispana and Bindal rivers.