At a recent meeting in Pune, Secretary of Union Ministry of Jal Shakti said that safety assessment of about 5000 large dams, out of total around 6000 in India is pending as per the following PIB press release. He went on to urge acceleration of dam safety assessments across the country. This is a worrying situation, coming straight from the secretary of the concerned Union Ministry. It again underlines the sorry situation regarding dam safety in India.
Continue reading “DRP Nov 3 2025: Safety Assessment of 5000 Indian dams pending”Tag: Dam Safety
Sept. 2025: Six Killed in Luti Dam Flood Disaster in Chhattisgarh
(Feature Image: Damaged Sadsa Luti dam in Balrampur)
A flash flood disaster caused by a significant breach in Luti dam bund has killed six people while one remained missing in Dhaneshpur village near Vishram Nagar under Balrampur district of Chhattisgarh. Six of the flood victims are members of a single family living about 500 meter downstream from the dam area. About eleven villagers were swept away by strong current of waters. Some of them managed to save their lives by holding on to trees and swimming to their safety. Three persons also suffered injuries in this dam induced flood incident.
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Aug 2025: Ravi Flood Damages Madhopur Barrage Gates in Punjab
(Feature Image: 2 gates of the Madhopur Barrage washed away on Aug 27, flooding parts of Pathankot & Gurdaspur.)
A severe flood spell in Ravi river has damaged at least three flood gates of Madhopur barrage in Pathankot district of Punjab. The incident occurred in the evening of Aug 27, 2025 amid an effort to open the jammed gates of the barrage. The situation became critical after 2.12 lakh cusecs of water discharged from the upstream Ranjit Sagar Dam (RSD) dangerously increased the flood level at the barrage on Aug. 26.
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DRP 250825: Threat of Dam Floods continue to be ignored
(Feature Image: The release of water from Pong Dam has brought devastation to Mand Bhograwan village in Kangra district, where the sudden rise in the Beas river has submerged several acres of fertile land and put houses at risk. Aug 17.)
Sudden release of large quantity of water from the dams has the potential of creating avoidable floods in the downstream areas as we could see last week in case of Ukai Dam water releases affecting Surat in South Gujarat, Ujani and Jayakwadi dam water releases in Maharashtra, Bhakra and Pong dam releases in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, among others. In all these cases, we can show that earlier water release was warranted based on available information, considering the carrying capacity of the downstream river, but such action was delayed till either the dam was full before water started (e.g. Ujani and Jayakwadi) or too large water releases created avoidable flood impacts in case of Ukai Dam on Tapi River in South Gujarat and also in case of Bhakra and Pong dams. There were also extensive damages in Mirzapur and Chandauli districts of Uttar Pradesh due to sudden release of water from a number of dams including Chandra Prabha Dam, Ahraura dam and Jargo Dam among others.
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DRP 200125: Whither Env Clearance Rejection rate from Expert Appraisal Committee or MoEF?
A detailed review of functioning of Union Ministry of Environment and Forests’ (MoEF) Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley Projects (RVP) for 2024 by SANDRP shows that the committee or for that matter MoEF has almost non-existent rejection rate. Even when a project is not cleared, when it applies again, it gets clearance, whether the application if for stage I (Terms of Reference) or Stage II (Environment Clearance- EC) clearance. Even in some cases like Pump Storage Projects (PSP) in Western Ghats or the Hydropower projects in disaster prone Himalayas, including the disaster-stricken projects like the 1200 MW Teesta III projects in Sikkim, the scrutiny including field visits by the EAC Sub committees is minimal, not worthy calling even scrutiny.
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2024: Siltation, Safety & Sustainability of Hydro, Dams in India
(Feature Image: Pune: Pavana, Mulshi, Panshet, and Khadakwasla Dams Release Water Due to Heavy Rain in Catchment Areas. Source: Pune Now News, Sept 2024)
This annual overview focusses on how siltation, muck dumping related issues are affecting the safety and sustainability of Hydropower projects and dams in India. Some of the key dams facing crisis in this regard include Bhakra, Ratle, Gangasagar, Hathnur among others. Some of the states where this issue is acute include HP, J&K, Maharashtra, Telangana, Kerala, Karnataka & Punjab.
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DRP 130125: Will Judiciary take these matters to logical conclusion?
There are at least four cases in this past week where the judiciary has used strong words or taken up crucial issues in water, dams, hydropower projects, wetlands and riverbed mining related issues. In the case related to the safety of Mullaperiyar dam on Kerala-TN border, the Supreme Court has prodded the Centre to wake up from the slumber to ensure that National Dam Safety Authority quickly forms a panel to examine the project. This case has wide ranging repercussions not only about this project, but also functioning of NDSA and other bodies under the Dam Safety Act 2021. Indeed, there is huge question mark as to what extent NDSA and DSA has made our dams any safer.
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DRP 060125: Concerns about & Contradictions in CGWB’s Reports
The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) released two important reports last week. While the Annual Ground Water Quality Report 2024 reveals rise in nitrate fluoride, arsenic and uranium contimination of groundwater resource in India, the Dynamic Groundwater Resource Assessment Report 2024 claims substantial rise in annual groundwater recharge and decline in extraction of the resource.
As per the first report, the number of districts affected by high nitrate levels in groundwater has gone up to 440 (near 56% of all 779 districts in country) from 359 found in 2017 assessment which means in 7 years 81 more districts have been found having excessive nitrate levels in groundwater. This should concern us from a number of points of view.
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2024: Has NDSA made our dams any safer?
(Feature Image: Srisailam dam in Telangana. Source: Telangana Today)
This annual overview focusses on the functioning of National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) and related institutions in 2024 to understand if the functioning of these institutions have made Indian Dams any safer? Here functioning of Central Water Commission (CWC) is also important as CWC people head all the dam safety panels. The dam safety related institutions were formed following the passage of Dam Safety Act 2021 and hence there were promises and hopes that these institutions will make our dams safer.
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2024: Dam Induced Floods in India
(Feature Image: Breach in the earth dam of Peddavagu project flooded several villages in Telangana & Andhra Pradesh on July 17, 2024. Source: DC)
India has seen several manmade flood disasters during the 2024 monsoon. The mismanagement of dams in Narmada valley including Bargi, and SSP inundated several dam affected villages despite adequate actionable advance warnings. The uninformed excess releases from DVC dams have led to flooding in large areas in West Bengal as repeatedly raised by the state government. The extensive floods in Tripura have revealed glaring loopholes in flood prevention and disaster management.
The floods in the year have also washed away or damaged several earthen dams, tanks in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan affecting human population, agricultural lands in their vicinity. Even during Northeast monsoon, the sudden releases from Sathanur and Veedur dams in Tamil Nadu created avoidable flood damage in downstream areas. Similarly, the states of Gujarat, Telangana, Haryana and Delhi have seen deluge due to mismanagement or breaches in the canals. The case of Narmada canal waters flooding large areas of Little Runn of Kutch is quite concerning.
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