Sikkim cloudburst: House Panel in March suggested a single nodal agency for monitoring glaciers

NEW DELHI: Parliamentary standing committee on water resources in its March report suggested that a single nodal agency should be set up “for bringing out synergies among various government departments/ministries involved in glaciological research and monitoring to achieve desirable results”.

“Such an agency should be entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating the activities of all the departments/agencies involved in Himalayan glaciers monitoring and research work. Besides, this agency should be given well-defined and delineated mandate by suitably amending the allocation of business rules,” the panel recommended.

It noted the “strategic role and importance of glaciers as a vital national resource” and called for new strategies to combat challenges posed by climate change and global warming in glacier management.


On the basis of submissions made by various central departments, the panel said no study was carried out by Geological Survey of India, ISRO and Department of Science & Technology (DST) to critically analyse the enlargement and origin of glacial lakes near human settlements and their potential cause for a lake outburst.

The Union environment ministry hasn’t conducted any study or awarded any project on warming of Himalayan glaciers, the committee said.

Central Water Commission hasn’t issued any advisory to the concerned local governments regarding the anticipation of floods caused by avalanches/cloudburst landslides in the Himalayas, the panel was informed.

There is no information on the stretches of Himalayas where the danger of melting of glaciers and consequent glacial lake outburst floods (Glof) are most severe, it said.

Moreover, ‘no study on temporal changes in glacial lake numbers and their extent has been carried out by ISRO and GSI’. The panel’s report — Monitoring of Glaciers/Lakes including Glacial Lake Outbursts leading to Flash-floods in the Himalayan Region — noted that agencies were allocated funds but only a “meagre amount” was spent for conducting research/studies in the last 5 years.

It noted “severe shortage” of meteorological stations in the Himalayan region. Most of the warning systems are inadequate as they are designed to make forecasts only for single disasters while all recent incidents point to a cascading effect, the panel said.

Uttarakhand, which has suffered two heavy Glof incidents in 2013 and 2021, has only six flood forecasting stations. The panel said, the National Disaster Response Force was not equipped with modern muck cleaning instruments/equipment to deal with emergent situations such as the one that arose in Chamoli district in Uttarakhand in February 2021 and had no dedicated aircraft carrier to ferry personnel to the site speedily.

The committee report noted that, as per the information furnished by DST, the “Himalayan-Karakoram region is becoming warmer at a faster rate than global mean by 0.5 degree Celsius” which will lead to local changes in hydrology in terms of rainfall and snowfall patterns, increased melting from glaciers and threaten infrastructure due to increase in extreme events.

The Union environment ministry informed the panel that smaller glaciers in the Himalayan region are more sensitive to climate change and their shrinkage rate is higher than those of larger glaciers.

According to the earth sciences ministry, all India mean temperature has risen by nearly 0.7 degree Celsius during 1901 to 2018.