Santa is leaning over the bridge railing, staring intently at the river below.
He has a very confused look on his face.
“Banta,” he says, without looking away from the water, “something is very strange with our Ganga ji here.”
“I’ve lived my whole life by this river.”
“She used to be swift and energetic.”
“But now… now she seems… lazy.”
Banta chuckles.
“That’s a new way to describe a holy river!”
“But it’s true!” Santa insists.
“Look!”
“The riverbed seems so much higher than it was in our childhood.”
“The water is spread out, flowing slowly.”
“In my father’s time, the banks were steep and deep!”
“Now, it feels like even a moderate monsoon flood could easily spill over into the lower market area.”
“Is the river getting old and tired?”
Banta’s smile fades into a thoughtful expression.
“The river is not tired, Santa.”
“She is being made tired.”
“She is being underfed.”
“She is being asked to do the work of a champion porter on an empty stomach.”
“An underfed porter?” Santa asks, finally turning to look at Banta, his curiosity piqued.
“Think of our Ganga ji as a strong, hard-working Pahadi Coolie” Banta explains.
“For centuries, her job was to carry a heavy load of Ret–Bajri from the high mountains all the way down to the plains.
And her Bhojan, her energy to carry this heavy load, was the full, powerful force of her natural flow.”
“Okay, makes sense,” Santa nods.
“But now,” Banta continues, “we have built dams and barrages upstream and downstream.
These dams hold back a lot of the water, releasing it in a controlled, much less powerful flow.”
“We have, in effect, put our strong porter on a strict diet.”
“We have taken away half her Rotis, but still expect her to carry the same heavy sack of sediment.”
Santa’s eyes widen.
“So what does the porter do?”
“What would any tired, underfed porter do?” Banta retorts.
“She gets exhausted halfway through her journey!”
“She starts dropping her load.”
“And right here, in our town, is where she has started to drop her sack of silt, sand and gravels, year after year.”
“The riverbed, her path, is slowly filling up with the very sediment she no longer has the strength to carry away.”
“This is called riverbed aggradation.”
“And as the bed rises, the river’s capacity to hold floodwater shrinks.”
“That is why she seems fat and lazy and why the risk of her spilling into the town is now so much higher.”
Santa looks down at the river with a completely new understanding, a mixture of awe and alarm.
“So, the dams that were meant to give us Bijli are also making our river tired and causing it to dump its load right at our doorstep?”
“It’s like we stole the porter‘s lunch, and now she is blocking our doorway with her heavy sack in protest!”
“A perfect way to see it, Santa!” Banta says gravely.
“This green energy from hydropower has a hidden cost written in the rising riverbed of our towns.”
“And it’s a bill that will come due with the next big flood.”
“We must understand that managing a river’s energy also means managing its load, otherwise the consequences will be deposited right where we live.”
संता – बंता की इस जुगलबन्दी से आज हमने क्या सीखा:-
- बाँध और बैराज नदियों के प्राकृतिक बहाव को बाधित कर देते हैं, जिससे नदी की गाद और मलबे को बहा ले जाने की प्राकृतिक क्षमता कम हो जाती है / Dams and barrages alter a river’s natural flow, reducing its capacity to transport sediment.
- इसके कारण इन ढाँचों के ऊपरी हिस्सों या दो बाँधों के बीच नदी का तल लगातार ऊपर उठता रहता है (Riverbed Aggradation) / This leads to riverbed aggradation (rising of the riverbed level) upstream of the structures or in between them.
- नदी का तल ऊपर उठने से सामान्य या मध्यम बारिश के दौरान भी आस-पास के कस्बों और बस्तियों में अचानक भीषण बाढ़ आने का जोखिम बहुत बढ़ जाता है / A raised riverbed significantly increases the risk of flooding in nearby towns and settlements, even during moderate rainfall events.
- जलविद्युत परियोजनाओं की योजना में गाद के प्रबंधन (‘सेडिमेंट बजट‘) का विस्तृत विश्लेषण और प्रभाव आकलन अनिवार्य रूप से शामिल होना चाहिए, ताकि ऐसी अनचाही और ख़तरनाक आपदाओं से बचा जा सके / Hydropower planning must include a comprehensive ‘sediment budget‘ analysis and downstream impact assessment to prevent such unintended, hazardous consequences.
संता – बंता की यह जुगलबन्दी आपको कैसी लगी, कृपया हमें जरुर बताये
व
इस जुगलबन्दी को बेहतर बनाने के लिये अपने सुझाव अवश्य दें।
हमें हमेशा की तरह आपके सुझावों, प्रतिक्रियाओं व कटाक्षो का बेसब्री से इंतजार रहता हैं औरसच मानिये इसी के आधार पर हम अपने आप में, अपनी सोच व रचनात्मकता में सुधार करने कोप्रेरित होते हैं।
सो अच्छा – बुरा जैसा आपको महसूस हुवा हो, कमेंट जरुर करते रहें।
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