Joshimath, and Building on Ground That Cannot Carry It

In one line

A town built on the debris of an old landslide began to sink, and everything that made it sink was permitted.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: Joshimath in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, is built on the deposit of an ancient landslide, and in January 2023 large cracks appeared in hundreds of houses and in the roads, buildings were evacuated and construction was stopped; the Mishra Committee of 1976 had warned that the town stands on a moraine and old landslide material, that it is not suitable for a large settlement, that excavation of the slopes and blasting should be prohibited and that the drainage and the tree cover must be maintained; and the legal question the episode raises is why a warning of that kind, given by a Government committee, bound nobody.

The physical facts

Joshimath stands on the deposit of an old landslide. The material beneath it is not rock but loose debris, sand, boulders and clay, which is stable only while it is dry, undisturbed and well drained.

Three things destabilise such a deposit. Water entering it, because saturated debris loses strength and flows. Removal of material from the toe of the slope, because the mass above then has nothing to rest against. And vibration, from blasting or from heavy traffic.

What happened at Joshimath had all three. Construction and paving that put the run-off into the ground rather than off the hill; the loss of natural drainage as the streams were built over; and, on the accounts given at the time, the tunnelling and the highway works in the vicinity. A student should present the causes as contested rather than settled, because they were: the Government's own agencies did not agree.

The Mishra Committee

In 1976 a committee headed by M.C. Mishra, then the Commissioner of Garhwal, reported on the subsidence at Joshimath. Its findings, which are the reason the town's fate was not a surprise, were in substance these.

Joshimath is on a deposit of sand and stone, not on rock, and it is on an old landslide.

It is therefore not a suitable site for a large township.

Restrictions should be placed on heavy construction, and on excavation of the slopes for road repair or for other construction.

Blasting and digging to remove boulders should be banned, and boulders should not be removed from the slopes.

The tree cover between Marwari and Joshimath must be increased, and a pucca drainage system must be built to take the run-off off the hill rather than into it.

And agricultural terracing on the slopes should be avoided, because it holds water.

None of that was binding. A committee report is not a statute or a rule, and there was no instrument that made building at Joshimath unlawful.