THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report found that the Central Water Commission had requested the state government in November 2011 to provide the list of reservoirs that required inflow forecasting stations and list of cities and towns for flood forecasting stations. After the 2018 flood, the CWC in August 2019 confirmed that the government had not furnished the details.
As a result, no flood forecasting station (FFS) was set up by the CWC in Kerala even as it set up 275 such stations across the country in 2017. This led to deprivation of data which the state could have used for forecasting, the report said.
The report titled ‘Preparedness and response to floods in Kerala’ covering the 2014-19 period was tabled in the assembly on Thursday. It said only six rain gauges against the requirement of 32 were available for rainfall estimation in the Periyar basin by IMD.
The shortfall resulted in the lack of real-time data on spatially distributed rainfall which could have an adverse impact on flood forecasting and alleviation steps, the report said. Though 7,124 works of immediate repair and restoration of damage in the 2018 flood were approved under the state disaster response fund, 18% were yet to be completed. The government then informed the CAG that the works were expected to be completed by May this year.