Even three months after the Joshimath disaster, which saw cracks appear in many houses, the government is yet to build the 4,000 plus prefabricated dwellings for those whose homes are at risk. Meanwhile, the report of an expert committee, whose members were drawn from eight premier scientific institutes, has not been made public. Those who are part of the committee have been gagged and cannot speak about their findings openly.
These above points were made by Atul Sati, Convenor of the Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, at a meeting organized by the Campaign to Defend Nature and People- a not-for-profit organization. CDNP India’s objective is to drive climate change action through insights received from Indian corporates.
Sati said people had started efforts to draw the attention of the government to cracks appearing in Joshimath since November 2021. For the last 96 days, the people of the town, which is the gateway to Badrinath, Hemkund Saheb and the Valley of Flowers, have been organizing dharnas every day to draw the attention of the government. Yet, one minister who visited Joshimath suggested that prayers were the best remedy to avert such tragedies.
“This is the most opportune time to talk and initiate action on relevant issues as people still remember Joshimath so clearly. However, the focus of the government is more on the Char Dhaam yatra”, said Sati.
The yatra, among the biggest sources of revenue for the state government, will kick off on April 22.
Ravi Chopra, Research Scientist at the People’s Science Institute said that not only was the town sited on debris from earlier landslides, the rocks and stones which formed the waste were also cracked - thus allowing for easy permeability of water. This is and will keep weakening the base on which the town is built.
A 1976 report had suggested the building of spurs to slow the erosion of rocks caused by water from the Alaknanda and Dhauli rivers, which border the town. This was never followed, as were recommendations from later reports.
“Our model of development can only be called ‘development adventure’. Our capacity for responding to disasters is a disaster in itself,” said Chopra.
Three major human activities- expansion of roads, hydropower projects and digging of new railway tunnels are responsible for most of the disasters in the state. The Himalayas, being a young and fragile mountain range, are still moving, thus making the state’s upper altitudes towns and areas especially fragile.
Chopra said that the lessons for Joshimath must be applied to the whole country. “Are we studying the drainage patterns for coastal cities like Mumbai and Kochi?” he said.
Sati said that the state had employed ‘destructive development’ and that Joshimath was just a small preview of what awaits Uttarakhand if immediate course corrections are not made.
