‘Hathnikund a barrage, not dam. It diverts Yamuna water to canals’

Former Haryana government engineer says land grab, illegal mining contributed to flooding in Delhi; suggests opening of all ITO barrage gates to allow free flow of water

Interview

Shiv Singh Rawat

Amid the blame game between the Haryana and the Delhi governments over release of water from the Hathnikund barrage causing flooding in the national capital and the dysfunctional ITO barrage, Shiv Singh Rawat, former Superintending Engineer in Haryana’s Irrigation and Water Resources Department (I&WRD), weighs in to help understand the working of barrages and what could have prevented the flooding. Edited excerpts:

Could Haryana not release the water into two canals at Hathnikund barrage to prevent flooding in Delhi?

Yamuna water is allocated to Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan as per an MoU dated May 12, 1994. At Hathnikund barrage, there is the Yamuna, the Western Yamuna Canal (WYC) and the Eastern Yamuna Canal (EYC). The WYC takes Yamuna water to Haryana for irrigation and to Delhi for drinking. Its capacity is 20,000 cubic feet per second (CFS). The EYC caters to U.P. with a capacity of 7,000 CFS.

The combined capacity of the canals is 7% of Yamuna’s peak water flow of 3,60,000 CFS on July 11 that passed on to the downstream river system at the HKB. Even if the gates of both the canals were opened, about 3,33,000 CFS water in Yamuna would have passed on to Delhi.

 Would it have reduced the flooding had the gates been opened?