Flood Affected Area

The assessment of flood prone area of the country has been carried out by different expert committees. The Rashtriya Barh Ayog in the year 1980 estimated the total area liable to floods in the country as 40 million hectare (mha). The extent of maximum area affected by floods in any year during 1953-2010 as per the Working Group Report (year 2011) on Flood Management and Region Specific Issues for XII Plan is 49.815 mha, the State-wise break up of which is given at Annexure. As per the Working Group Report, the maximum area affected by floods in the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh prior to promulgation of “The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014” is 9.040 mha.                                                  Flood management including erosion control falls within the purview of the States. Flood management and anti-erosion schemes are formulated and implemented by concerned State Governments as per their priority. The Union Government supplements the efforts of the States by providing technical guidance and also promotional financial assistance for management of floods in critical areas. Flood protection and flood management measures are broadly classified as under-

1. Structural Measures – The structural measures for flood control which bring relief to the flood prone areas by reducing flood flows and thereby reducing the flood levels.
2. Non-Structural Measures- Facilitating timely evacuation of the people and shifting of their movable property to safer grounds by having advance warning of incoming flood through setting up a flood forecasting system. Discouraging creation of valuable assets/settlement of the people in the areas subject to frequent flooding i.e. enforcing flood plain zoning regulation.

Integrated flood management approach aims at adopting judicious mix of structural and non-structural measures to provide a reasonable degree of protection against flood damages at economic cost.

To strengthen the structural measures of flood management, Ministry had implemented Flood Management Programme (FMP) during XI & XII Plan for providing Central Assistance to States for works related to flood control, anti-erosion, drainage development, anti-sea erosion, etc. which subsequently continued as a component of “Flood Management and Border Areas Programme” (FMBAP) for the period from 2017-18 to 2020-21 and has been further extended up to September 2022. So far, central assistance amounting to Rs. 6,686.79 crore has been released to States/Union Territories under this programme since inception. However, there is no ongoing or proposed flood management project in the State of Andhra Pradesh under FMBAP.

For non structural measures, Central Water Commission (CWC) is the nodal organisation entrusted with the task of flood forecasting & early flood warnings in the country. Presently, CWC issues flood forecasts for 332 forecasting stations (199 river level forecast stations & 133 dam/ barrage inflow forecast stations). These stations cover 20 major river basins in 23 States & 2 Union Territories. In order to provide more lead time to the local authorities to plan evacuation of people & take other remedial measures, CWC has developed basin wise flood forecasting model based on rainfall-runoff mathematical modelling for 5 days advance flood forecast advisory at identified flood forecasting and inflow forecasting stations. CWC issues flood forecasts at 10 stations and in inflow forecasts for 10 stations in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

This information was given by the Minister of State, for Jal Shakti, Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

ANNEXURE

The extent of maximum area affected by floods in any year during 1953-2010 as per the Working Group Report on Flood Management and Region Specific Issues for XII Plan

*Erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh (prior to promulgation of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014)