National Hydrology Project

With the objective to provide real time flood forecasts as well as data to help farmers plan their cropping pattern, the Union Government has given its nod to the multi-purpose National Hydrology Project (NHP) with an outlay of over Rs. 3679 crore.

Four Components

This project is a Central Sector Scheme with two main components viz. National Hydrology Project (NHP) worth Rs. 3640 Crore and National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) worth Rs. 39.7 Crore. It will be implemented in two stages. The NWIC is proposed to be established as an independent organization under the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. There are two other components viz. Water Resources Operation and Management System and Water Resources Institutions and Capacity Building.

Objectives

Under the NHP, the Hydro-meteorological data will be stored and analyzed in real time basis and can be seamlessly accessed by any user at State, District and Village level. The project will cover the entire country. The potential outputs of this project are as follows:

• The NWIC would result in proper data storage, exchange, analysis and dissemination on hydrology.
• Increase time of flood forecast from 1 day to 3 day advance.
• Mapping of flood affected areas for disaster management.
• Assessment of water in river basin {both surface and ground}.
• Reservoir operations through seasonal yield forecast, drought management and SCADA {Supervisory control and data acquisition}
• Design of surface and ground water structures, hydropower units, interlinking of rivers, smart cities and fulfilling Digital India.

In summary, the overall broad objective of the project is water management through scientific data collection, dissemination of information on water availability / flood forecasting in all parts of the country.

Funding

Of the total outlay of Rs. 3679.8 Crore, 50% amount would be World Bank Loan, while 50% would come from central budgetary support as grant.

Questions and Answers

What are the Current Institutional Arrangements for Real Time Flood Forecast?

Currently, the Central Water Commission maintains a network of 878 stations for collection of flood information and issues flood forecast to 176 stations located on major rivers and their tributaries. In December 2015, the Government has also approved a Rs. 281 Crore scheme of Flood Forecasting for 12th plan period. This scheme envisages modernization of existing network and provision of 100 Flood Forecasting stations for real time flood forecasting. The last effort is approval of National Hydrology Project (NHP) and setting up of National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) at New Delhi for timely and reliable information management.

Is NHP a new project?

No, it’s not a new project. It’s basically one of the phases {Phase-III} of the ongoing World Bank Hydrology Project. The only key difference in this phase is that it has been extended from 13 states to entire country. Further, it would integrate all the dams, rivers, reservoirs, surface water and groundwater and then would plan its management and usage. On central level, the government would send advice to states for usage of water in their respective territories.

What are the possible implications of this project?

Firstly, this project is expected to develop the real time flood forecasting and reservoir operations in a manner that does not result in sudden opening of gates which inundates the area down below. Secondly, it would facilitate the integrated water resource management by adopting river basin approach. It would also help in planning and implementation of irrigation systems. Thirdly, farmers shall be able to get real time ground water position so that they can accordingly plan their cropping pattern. This will also help in promoting efficient and equitable use of water particularly of ground water at the village level. fourthly, it would build capacity of the State and Central sector organisations in water resources management through the use of Information Systems and adoption of State-of-the-art technologies like Remote Sensing. Last but not the least; it would boost India’s prestige in the field of scientific endeavour.

How do you critically appraise the project?

This project is good and there has been a need of real time data collection, analysis and dissemination on flood forecast, ground and surface water conditions etc. But the bigger issue is of governance. Currently, decision making process in hydrology related matters is highly opaque and confined to a handful of officials. For example, during heavy rains the decision to open the floodgates is taken by a handful of people belonging to specific dam committee. Many a times, such decisions have proved to be arbitrary and resulted in catastrophes. Thus, such decision making needs to be a multi-stake holder and it can be expected the seamless real-time data accessibility might change the current way of governance.