Telangana Forms Nodal Agency for Flood Plain Zoning After 2024 Devastation

He promised to identify the first river reaches for demarcation with mapping of vulnerable pockets before the upcoming monsoon.

The minister was addressing workshop on Flood Plain Zoning for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, organised by the Krishna and Godavari Basin Organisation, Ministry of Jal Shakti in Hyderabad.

He presented a detailed roadmap to address the recurring floods and extensive ravage being caused by them in the state. He said it gives special focus to the recurring flood problems of the Godavari at Bhadrachalam and the Munneru in Khammam besides other river sub basins in the state.

He recalled the devastating September 2024 floods in Khammam as the Munneru River crested at a record 36 feet -- the highest since 1984 -- submerging several colonies to rooftop level, inundating over 110 villages and leaving people stranded on hillocks and rooftops.

He said the floods affected 29 of Telangana's 33 districts, damaged 1,023 km of roads, breached 257 streams and ponds, killed 26,592 cattle, destroyed more than 20 lakh acres of crops and caused an initial estimated loss of Rs 5,438 crore, with 29 lives lost.

He described the event as unprecedented in 30 years and said every statistic represented human suffering. Elaborating on the Godavari flood crises, he said at Bhadrachalam, the Godavari crosses the danger mark almost every severe monsoon, cutting off the vital Bhadrachalam-Nelipaka road and isolating communities.

He explained the CWC's three-zone framework -- Protected Zone, Regulatory Zone and Warning Zone -- and asserted that Flood Plain Zoning is not anti-development but a guarantee of intelligent and sustainable growth. "Telangana is blessed with two of India's mightiest river systems -- the Krishna and the Godavari. These rivers are the arteries of our agriculture, the lifeline for our drinking water, and the very foundation of our state's economic development and progress."

With these blessings, however, comes a profound responsibility. Climate change is intensifying both droughts and floods, while rainfall patterns that once remained predictable over decades have become highly erratic even within a single monsoon season. Regions that had not witnessed flooding for 10 to 15 years are now suddenly inundated. The devastating September 2024 floods were, for many districts, unprecedented in living memory, he said.

"Yet the core problem is not merely the rainfall itself, he said. Over decades, we have quietly encroached upon what rightfully belongs to the rivers. We have built on floodplains, filled wetlands, narrowed river channels, and blocked natural drainage pathways. When the rivers reclaimed their space in September 2024, they were merely responding to the injustices we had inflicted upon them," he added.

Senior officials from the Central Water Commission, GRMB, KRMB, Irrigation Departments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and academicians from premier institutions and industry representatives were among those present.

- IANS