[Assam] Engineering interventions for flood control

[umesh sharma]

If dredging is the solution as our IIT educated and US trained architect C-da says, and if it is low-tech -- then why not?
 
Umesh
 
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C-da wrote: 
 
The account below points, once again, to the dysfunctional nature of 
government.

Engineering alone, invoked by the dam and embankment proponents, 
cannot be the be-all and end-all
of SOLUTIONs as is amply illustrated.

Let us agree for a moment that there are situations where dredging 
can alleviate the problem. If so, WHY has it not been done? Not even 
tried. If man can go to the moon, India can launch satellites, why 
can't it dredge a rive? It is as low tech as it can get. Human 
labour with short-handled hoes and head-baskets can dig and dispose 
of a lot of silt in one dry season. Has there been a shortage of 
labour? Hoes? Baskets? Funds?

I get it-- it HAS to be done, like Prof. Ranganathan reminds us.

Question is by whom? If it is an answer, why has it not been done? 
What has held all these highly trained civil engineers, civil 
servants that can recite an encyclopedia and cook up EIRs on demand 
and fine elected officials of the world's largest democracy back 
from performing such a menial task for all these decades? Surely 
their fellow men have launched satellites in outer space carrying 
them to their pads in bullock-carts, demonstrating their ingenuity 
for all the world to see.

What seems to be the problem in keeping the silted rivers flowing and 
dam reservoir de-silting? Perhaps our friend Dr. M C George will 
tell us?

Obviously it is a tad bit more complicated, isn't it?

But what? What is it that keeps getting in the way of getting 
ANYTHING done in India?

Doesn't anyone want to know? Why is there such a huge absence of 
curiosity ? Could it be that it is no secret, but no one knows how to 
overcome it? Or could it be that what we think we know is not the 
cause, merely symptoms?

 

Umesh Sharma

Washington D.C. 

1-202-215-4328 [Cell]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)




www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/



http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/