June 2025: ‘Cloudburst’ damages Jiwa hydro project in Sainj Valley, Himachal Pradesh

June 27, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Submerged powerhouse of Jiwa SHP in Siund, Sainj. Source: Amar Ujala)

A massive flash flood following a ‘cloudburst’ has totally damaged the powerhouse and weir site of the Jiwa Small Hydroelectric Project (SHP) in Sainj Valley of Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh on June 25, 2025. The powerhouse of 1 Mw SHP is located in Siund village area near the confluence point of Jiwa nullah with Pin Parbati river. Its weir site is located about 2 km upstream on the Jiwa stream.

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Cloud Burst · Hydro Disaster · Rivers

June 2025: Indira Priyadarshini HEP in Himachal: Workers missing, Project damaged

June 26, 2025June 30, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature image rescue work in Manuni khad in Khaniyar, Kangra on 26 June 2025. Source: Social Media)

In a tragic incident several workers of under construction Indira Priyadarshini Hydel Project are missing after a ‘cloudburst’ induced flash flood struck the project site on June 25, 2025. The 4.8 Mw (2.4 X 2) small hydro power project is being developed by Indira Priyadarshini Hydro Power Pvt Ltd (IPHPPL) on Manuni khad near Sokani Da Kot village under Khaniyara post office of Dharamshala tehsil in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Manuni khad is a tributary of Baner River in Beas basin. The construction work started in Dec 2019 & was scheduled for commissioning in May 2026.

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Rivers

Message after 50 yrs of Gharial conservation: Save Rivers if we really want to save Gharials

June 26, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

The Central message after fifty years of Gharial Conservation effort since 1975 is that Gharial’s fate remains precarious. It seems like a species living on borrowed time, forever on the verge of extinction. It is living thanks to a few scientists, forest officials and some riverside communities. And if we really want to save Gharials, we must save rivers, the habitat of Gharials from sand mining, dams and pollution.

If the next 50 years of Gharial conservation are to be more successful than the last, India will need to protect not just a species, but an entire ecosystem. Gharials can be saved only if their habitat, rivers can be saved. India showed the will to save tigers starting early 1970s, but is there a will to save some of the rivers to save gharials?

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floodplains · Free flowing rivers · River Restoration · Yamuna River

Yamuna Manthan June 2025: Positive water, river stories from Yamuna basin

June 19, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

POSITIVE YAMUNA REPORTS

Uttar Pradesh’s Noon river runs again Jalaun farmers in Bundelkhand will not have to toil too much this season to get water for crops. They have almost revived an 81km-long local river that had dried up completely. Community members have restored the drainage basin over a 14km course of Noon river to create a funnel through which water has again entered it. The river had dried up to encroachments and poor rainfall. The revival commenced in 2021 and reached the final stage only recently, with voluntary labour contributions from thousands of local men and women. Officials said the water would start flowing through the entire course of the river in a fortnight. The river is expected to help more than 15,350 farmers.

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Climate Change · Dams · Groundwater · Rivers · Water

DRP 16 June 2025: “Indus River older than its landscape, Himalayas”

June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

INDUS RIVER: Stephen Alter, in his article “With the River by My Side” says about Indus River that some rivers are older than the landscape through which they pass: “Nowhere is this clash between hydrological and geological history more apparent than along the Indus, as it passed through Ladakh. This seemingly eternal river has followed its winding course since long before the Himalaya were formed, tossing and tumbling over. Boulders, stones and pebbles that the water polishes and grinds into sand. Eroded flanks of the mountains on either side of the river are scarred and twisted by tectonic forces that lifted giant slabs of rock more than eight kilometres into the clouds but failed to block the persistent flow of the Indus. Driving along the highway that runs parallel to the river, from Leh to Kargil, it feels as if the landscape is a timeless epic that the waters of the Indus have etched in stone.”

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River Basin

From Texas to Maharashtra: Can River Basin Organizations Actually Work?

June 15, 2025June 16, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

The principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) have been supported by practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders across the world for a long time. While IWRM aims at integrating planning of land and water management initiatives together considering water as a resource, IRBM accepts the integrity of a river basin as an ecological unit for the same. River Basin Organizations (RBO) are basin level entities that can bring together stakeholders and coordinate, envision, plan and implement these integrated plans at the basin scale (or aquifer/subbasin/watershed scale). By implication, RBOs must be a bottom-up democratic bodies, upscaling solutions.

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Climate Change · Dams · Rivers · Water · Water Options

DRP 020625

June 2, 2025June 16, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

HYDRO POWER PROJECTS

Jammu & Kashmir In Kupwara district the 12 Mw Karnah in Kishan Ganga sub basin has joined the long list of HEP projects facing reoccurring damages, repeated delays and cost escalation in Himalayan states. The flash flood, landslides and cloudburst disasters in Feb and May 2025 have further damaged the project and extended its completion date.

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Climate Change · Cloud Burst · Hydro Power Projects

Jammu & Kashmir: ‘Cloudburst’ damages Karnah HEP in Jhelum Basin in May 2025

May 29, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Screenshot of video shared by Kashmir Weather on X platform showing powerhouse of 12 Mw Karnah HEP flooded after ‘cloudburst’ disaster on May 27, 2025 evening)

A ‘cloudburst’ induced deluge and landslide has severely affected the under construction 12 Mw Karnah Hydro Power Project in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district in evening hours of May 27, 2025. The extreme weather event between 04:45 PM to 05:45 PM, flooded the project.

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Dams · DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 260525: Opposition to large hydro as strategic projects

May 26, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Lahaul Spiti Ekta manch holds a protest rally against hydel projects at Udaipur in Lahaul Spiti on Friday May 23. Source: The Tribune)

Some of the most prominent reports this week are related to wide spread opposition to large hydro projects in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, among other states. Indeed, there is little sense in building large hydro projects as strategic assets as seems to be the case in Himachal Pradesh and J&K (Chenab basin) and Arunachal Pradesh (Siang basin, among others). Use of security forces to complete pre-feasibility survey when local communities are strongly against the project, as is being done in case of Siang Upper Multipurpose Project is clearly counter-productive in so many ways. In Kerala people have again gathered to oppose the destructive Athirapally Hydro projects that they have been successfully opposing since late 1990s.

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Climate Change · Cloud Burst · Disasters · Himalayas

Jammu-Srinagar NH-44 An Unfolding Long Term Disaster in Ramban District?

May 21, 2025May 23, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Social media image showing scroes of vehicles precariously standing on severely damaaged NH 44 in Ramban on April 20, 2025)

After April 20, 2025 ‘cloudburst’ disaster in Ramban, the role of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway (NH) 44 has been under criticism for adding into the devastation trail. While a significant portion of the NH has been severely damaged in the aftermath, the residents have also blamed the NH work for compromising the drainage system and increasing destruction toll in the affected area.

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