The Moon River: People’s Story of Chenab

April 15, 2025April 17, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Chenab, which translates as the Moon River is the largest of the five tributaries of River Indus. It flows for about 974 kilometers from the High Himalayas of Lahaul to the forests of Jammu and Kashmir and onto the plains of Pakistan. Its main tributaries in India include Miyar, Marusudhar and Tawi. In the vast plains of Punjab in Pakistan, it is met by Jhelum, Ravi and Sutlej to form the mighty Panjnad before it meets the Indus. Its catchment, spread across 67,430 km2, is shared between the two countries.

Chenab is Chandrabhaga (Crescent Moon) in its headwaters. It was the River Asikni in Rigveda, and the Acesines for the ancient Greek. From sparse mountain settlements of Lahaul to the bustling urban centers of Sialkot, more than 10 million people live and prosper along the Chenab. Hydropower projects operational and under constructions on the river have an installed capacity of more than 5000 MW (Central Electricity Authority 2024), and its canals irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres in Pakistan and India (Shakir et al).

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Dams · Hydropower · Maharashtra · Western Ghats

Letter to the EAC: No justification for Adani Dams in the Western Ghats

November 29, 2024November 30, 2024 SANDRP2 Comments

28.11.24

To,
The Chairperson and Members,
Expert Appraisal Committee, River Valley Projects,
Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change
New Delhi

Subject: Submission against 1500 MW Warasgaon Warangi Pumped Storage Project by Adani Green Energy to be discussed in the 19th EAC meeting for TORs

Respected Sirs,

We see that Adani Green Energy’s 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pumped Storage Project is being considered for fresh TORs in the upcoming meeting of the EAC. We have gone through the documents uploaded by the proponent (AGEL) on MoEF CC’s Parivesh Website.^[1]

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Hydro Disaster · Landslide · Sikkim · Teesta

Aug 2024: Massive Landslide damages NHPC’s Teesta V Hydropower station

August 21, 2024September 6, 2024 SANDRP1 Comment

A massive landslide (location: [27.2515, 88.4594]) at Dipu Data near Singtam in Gangtok district that brought down a huge part of a hill above the power house of the NHPC’s 510 MW Teesta V hydropower project on Teesta river in Sikkim at 7.30 in the morning of Aug 20 2024 has damaged the power house. The GIS building above the underground power house located at Balutar can be seen getting destroyed in the massive landslide and getting buried under the debris. The project has been out of operation since the Oct 4 2023 GLOF disaster in Teesta river [i] had over topped the dam and seriously damaged the project.

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Delhi · Urban Rivers · Yamuna River

A beginning of the Pipe Solution: Policy Intervention To Reduce Phosphates in Detergents

January 1, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

Guest Article by: Manu Bhatnagar

Consequent to INTACH’s efforts with the Yamuna Monitoring Committee [YMC] of NGT the following results were obtained in 2021:

“The Delhi government on Monday (June 14, 2021) banned the sale, storage, transportation, and marketing of soaps and detergents not conforming to the latest BIS parameters to curb pollution in the Yamuna river. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had in January (2021) accepted recommendations of the Yamuna Monitoring Committee (YMC) which had suggested directing the Delhi government to issue orders “prohibiting sale, storage and transportation and marketing of detergents which do not conform to the revised BIS standards”. All the authorities concerned, including local bodies, civil supplies department and district administrations having control over shops and other establishments dealing with sale, storage, transportation and marketing facilities for soaps and detergents in Delhi should ensure the compliance of directions through strict vigil and surprise checks, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) said in an order issued on Monday.

In its report submitted to the NGT, the YMC had also suggested that all the manufacturers of soaps and detergents be directed to disclose the ingredients present in the product and display the same on the package.” – The above as reported in Business Standard of 15 June, 2021. [i]

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Dams · Madhya Pradesh · Rehabilitation

Legally enforceable Humane Rehabilitation, not compensation needed: Madikheda Dam in Madhya Pradesh

October 4, 2022October 4, 2022 SANDRP1 Comment

Guest Article by Bageshwer Singh and Pooja Chand

Dam construction on any river is often preceded by displacement of locals and followed by submergence of villages, turning them into ghost villages. All the major river water projects involve large scale displacement of locals, and most of these displacements lead to creation of vulnerable groups. The stories of displacement and forced evictions can be traced back to construction of dams like Sardar Sarovar Dam on river Narmada, or Tehri Dam on Bhagirathi or Hirakud Dam on Mahanadi. Almost always, these displacements are rife with little insight into the village specific consequences of dam construction, villagers are left with no option but to give up on their ancestral lands to move out to alien colonies with no land to their name. Arundhati Roy, in her essay, ‘The greater common good’, while arriving at the figure of number of people displaced in the developmental projects in the last fifty years writes, “Fifty million people. I feel like someone who’s just stumbled on a mass grave.”

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Art, Literature, Culture · Ganga · W Bengal · West Bengal

Boat Races of Bengal: A River Carnival

September 28, 2022September 30, 2022 SANDRPLeave a comment

In the Nadi-Matrik land (born to the river) of Bengal, where a blade of grass takes on layered meanings, river boats are not to be taken lightly. For boatmen who row down a vast river for days at end, a boat is more than a mode of transport. It is symbolic of the mortal body: frail, tattered and adrift, in search of a safe harbor.

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Dam Disaster · Madhya Pradesh

Bharudpura Dam in MP faces disaster after first filling in Aug 2022

August 13, 2022August 14, 2022 SANDRPLeave a comment

Bharudpura dam (also called Karam dam) on Karam river, a tributary of Narmada river, near Gujari village in Dharampuri Tehsil of Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh faced major disaster after the very first filling in August 2022 when there was seepage from and massive erosion of the dam wall starting from Aug 11, 2022. The disaster at the Rs 304.44 crore project whose construction started in 2018 created a major turbulence in Madhya Pradesh with allegations of sub-standard work, corruption and attempts to hush up the safety issues. As a precaution, the administration has on Aug 12, 2022 vacated 12 downstream villages in Dhar district and 6 in Khargone district[i] and stopped traffic on roads close to the dam[ii]. Dhar Collector also said that the efforts to stop the seepage were not successful and that possible reason for erosion is the use of black rather than red soil in the construction of the earthn dam.

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Disasters · Landslide dam · Manipur

Manipur’s Ejei river blocking landslide at under construction railway line involved violations, no EIA, NGT pending case

July 2, 2022July 6, 2022 SANDRPLeave a comment

Eighteen Territorial Army personnel among 24 people were killed in a massive landslide in Manipur’s Noney district[i] on Wednesday (June 29, 2022), and at least another 40, including 18 soldiers, are feared trapped or buried in the rubble of an under-construction railway yard. An adjoining construction camp and security camp engulfed in the avalanche of rock and mud.[ii] The Railway line is under construction since a decade.

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Himachal Pradesh · Hydro Disaster

Fatal Disaster at Shongtong Hydro in Himachal Pradesh in June 2022

June 22, 2022 SANDRPLeave a comment

Two workers of 450 MW Shongtong hydropower Project[i] were killed when the trolley they were using overturned inside the tunn[ii]el of the under-construction project near Ralli in Kalpa Tehsil of Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. The police have registered a case in connection with the incident.

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Beas · Dams · Environment · Environment Impact Assessment · Environmental Flow · Fish · Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk · Free flowing rivers · Gharat · Himachal Pradesh · Hydropower · Rivers

Muktadhara Tirthan

June 15, 2022June 20, 2022 SANDRP4 Comments

How one fish and many people saved a river

“Hark! What is that? What is that sound? It is laughter, bubbling up from the heart of the darkness. It is the sound of water! There is no doubt. The water of Muktadhara is free!”

As I stepped on the wooden slats across the joyously gurgling Tirthan River, I remembered Rabindranath Tagore’s lines from his first play, Muktadhara (Free-flowing). I was in the Himalayas to listen to the story of Tirthan, a Muktadhara in her own right! Tirthan is the rarest, possibly the only river valley in India to be declared as a “No-Go Valley” for hydropower or dam development, protected in perpetuity.

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