Ashes and Floods: Climate Displacement in Uttarakhand Over the Years

Aadarsh Anand
6 hours ago
5 min read

Image Source: https://thewire.in/rights/uttarakhand-outmigration-crisis-villages

{This Blog is part of “Uttarakhand@25 Blog Series” in collaboration with SDC Foundation and The Analysis}

The flash floods and cloudbursts that struck Uttarakhand in August 2025 were not isolated calamities, but stark reminders of the state’s systemic failures. The incessant inflow of water and debris destroyed homes, roads and livelihoods, leaving families displaced and villages abandoned. With lives lost and communities evacuated, the tragedy underscored how two decades of reactive governance has turned the State into a laboratory of crisis, where climate-induced migration is met with neglect instead of proactive adaptation.

Migration from Uttarakhand’s hills is not a recent phenomenon, but its nature has changed profoundly under the growing weight of climate-stress events. Once sustained by a seasonal “money order economy”, the movement of people was largely temporary in nature. But today, entire families are leaving permanently as livelihoods contract and climate pressures intensify.

Uttarakhand’s migration crisis reflects an intensifying climate spiral. The 2010 floods left more than 30,000 people homeless, while the 2013 Kedarnath tragedy killed more than 6,000 people, affecting nearly 4,000 villages, displacing around 1.7 lakh residents, and shattering livelihoods. The 2021 Chamoli glacial burst impacted 13 villages, claiming 204 lives and driving thousands from their homes. By October 2024, the state had recorded 1,813 landslides, and the 2025 Dharali flash flood buried homes under 60 feet of debris, signalling a more permanent wave of exodus.

While floods and landslides dominate newspaper headlines, the Uttarakhand summer forest fires have also silently contributed to this displacement cycle. According to the Forest Survey of India, 2023, forest fires in Uttarakhand surged nearly fourfold from 5,351 in 2022-23 to 21,033 in 2023-24. Though the official data on the resulting displacement remains absent, it goes without saying that these fires decimate grazing lands and orchards, collapsing rural livelihoods and transforming seasonal migration into permanent exile.

Climate migration has thus become a stark reality, rather than just an ensuing threat. From the devastation of 2013 to the disaster at Dharali 2025, consecutive calamities have eroded land, livelihood, and human security, compelling people to do a survival-driven exodus. These migrations are acts of survival in a state trapped in a recurring cycle of floods, landslides, and cloudbursts. Failing to recognise this pattern risks normalising displacement as a routine experience rather than acknowledging it as a constitutional and policy failure. Migration is no longer seasonal but structural, driven by collapsing livelihoods and inaccessible terrain. Under Article 21, such neglect surpasses just policy negligence; it amounts to a betrayal of the constitutional promise to protect life and dignity.

Scientific evidence makes Uttarakhand’s reactive stance increasingly indefensible. A study by The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), ‘Locked Houses, Fallow Lands’ warns that the state’s temperature could rise by 1.6 to 1.9°C by 2050, with hill districts such as Chamoli and Pithoragarh amongst the most vulnerable to displacement. Between 2011 and 2018, 734 villages became ghost settlements. The report documents real accounts of households forced into debt and migration after repeated climate shocks, urging that the state must anticipate migration and construct resilient livelihoods.

The Reactive Trap: Why Current Policies Fall Short

Uttarakhand does not lack institutional frameworks and policies on paper. The State Disaster Management Authority, formed under the 2005 Act, is tasked with coordinating disaster planning through detailed policy frameworks. Schemes such as the Mukhyamantri Palayan Roktham Yojna (MPRY) aim to provide livelihood support across 474 vulnerable villages, while the World Bank-funded U-PREPARE, a 200 million USD project, seeks to build climate resilience. Constitutionally, under Article 21, the state bears a constitutional duty to protect life and ensure dignified living conditions, and Article 48A mandates environmental safeguarding.

Yet these commitments remain fragile in the absence of effective execution. Despite these institutional frameworks, the 2025 disasters exposed fundamental weaknesses in Uttarakhand’s disaster governance. The State’s approach continues to be overwhelmingly reactive rather than anticipatory. For instance, the State Action Plan on Climate Change and Human Health prioritises primarily on post-disaster health interventions instead of addressing the underlying drivers of displacement. Similarly, the scope of schemes like MPRY remains narrow, covering only 474 villages, against the scale of climate vulnerability across the state's 16,000+ villages.

The implementation aspect further deepens the crisis. Between 2012 and 2021, Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) identified 465 villages across the State requiring relocation; by 2022, this figure had risen to 484 villages marked for relocation. Yet, the actual figure of the relocation of people remains minimal. Critical shortcomings in early warning dissemination persist as well. Despite orange alerts, Chamoli communities during the 2025 floods received inadequate evacuation time due to the failure of early warning systems.

Uttarakhand’s governance crisis also stems from a widening gap between policy and practice. Flood zoning regulations exist on paper, yet unchecked, reckless construction and mining persist. And with such negligence, it fuels the displacement and erodes the public trust. The 2025 disasters underscore the urgent need for anticipatory governance, one which anchors in trusted early warning systems, community-led adaptation, and proactive prevention rather than reliance on post-disaster relief.

Constitutional Reckoning and the Path Forward

The climate migration crisis represents more than just a challenge of governance; it constitutes a fundamental test of constitutional morality that strikes at the very core of the ‘welfare state’.

Recurring calamities in Uttarakhand demand recognition that climate-induced displacement constitutes the defining welfare state challenge of our time. The legitimacy of a welfare state must rest not merely on its ability to provide relief after devastation, but also on its ability to prevent foreseeable harm to its citizens.

When studies such as TERI’s warning of temperature rise by 2050, when ghost settlements are increasing, and when forest fires surge fourfold, the State's reliance on post-disaster responses becomes the mark of inadequate governance. Upholding constitutional morality, therefore, requires the state to rethink and fundamentally change how it addresses climate risks. The response cannot be confined to incremental reforms in disaster management protocols or the launching of new schemes within outdated frameworks. The State has to move beyond episodic interventions to embed climate resilience into the very architecture of governance.

The choice before Uttarakhand is clear, either reform governance in alignment with the evolving climate challenge or allow the erosion of constitutional values with each avoidable displacement.

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Aadarsh Anand is an LL.M. candidate at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI, New Delhi). He is interested in questions pertaining to energy and environmental laws.

[The opinions expressed herein are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University, SDC Foundation, and The Analysis.]

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The series is curated by an editorial team led by Anoop & Rishabh (SDC Foundation), with Kanha, Visakha, Gautam and Alind from SCLHR and the team at The Analysis.