Tag: Dam

July 2023 Delhi Floods: Why Unprecedented Yamuna Water Levels even at moderate releases?
Yamuna River

July 2023 Delhi Floods: Why Unprecedented Yamuna Water Levels even at moderate releases?

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(Feature Image: Cycles of fisherfolks by the Yamuna and ongoing construction of Metro Bridge downstream of Wazirabad Barrage two weeks before the July 2023 floods. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP, June 28, 2023)

The national capital is witnessing one of the worst flood spells with water level at Railway Bridge breaching the highest recorded 207.49 m of Sept 6, 1978 by 1.17 m. The Yamuna seems eager to reclaim all its relict channel and encroached floodplain areas.

The River has set 208.66 meter as new HFL (Highest Flood Levels) for the site at 18:00 hours on 13 July 2023 which is 1.17 meter higher than the 1978’s HFL. The flood level is receding now.   

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Rivers Breaching High Flood Level in June 2023
CWC - Central Water Commission

Rivers Breaching High Flood Level in June 2023

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In the first month of South West (SW) monsoon season June 2023, there have been Highest Flood Level (HFL) breach incidents at two sites. Both of these sites namely Suklai on Suklai river and DRF on Puthimari river are level monitoring sites located in Baksa district of Assam in Brahmaputra basin.

Interestingly, the old HFL at both sites were attained in 2020 and 2022 only and the old HFLs were breached thrice between June 15 and 20, 2023. The details of old and new HFLs for these sites are given in table below.

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Vyasi Hydro: Village Drowned; River Dried but little power generation
Yamuna River

Vyasi Hydro: Village Drowned; River Dried but little power generation

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(Featured Image: Submerged Lohari village houses in Vyasi HEP ‘RoR’ dam reservoir. SANDRP, June 2023)

The 120 Mw Vyasi HEP built by Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd (UJVN Ltd.) in Vikas Nagar tehsil of Dehradun is on its way to become the textbook example of how thoughtlessly pushed hydro power projects are proving a nightmare for local people, a costly affair for the state and the nation and a disaster for free-flowing living river.

The project offers some bitter lessons for the policy-makers, experts and society who have been assuming that hydro power is a cheap, green source of energy and the Run of River (RoR) projects don’t dam and cause much harm to the environment, people or rivers.

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Photo Blog: Yamuna River A Year After Vyasi HEP
Yamuna River

Photo Blog: Yamuna River A Year After Vyasi HEP

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Vyasi HEP on Yamuna River is latest example of how the hydro power projects being pushed in the name of clean and green energy sources are failing on all fronts and proving a costly affair for the river, people and the nation.

The people who still think that the Run of the River (RoR) projects do not require a dam and cause no submergence of land; must visit the Vyasi HEP to witness the about 4 km long reservoir behind the 86-meter tall and 200-meter-long dam there.

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The Natural Water Systems that Make Ken a Living River
Ken River

The Natural Water Systems that Make Ken a Living River

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(Feature Image: Water pools (Dabras) formed in Ken (left) & Patne (right) rivers confluence in Pawai block, Panna district, MP. (Image taken during Ken River Yatra by SANDRP & Veditum) 

This report is based on the experiences and understandings made during a thirty-three-day long walk along Ken River covered in three phases in June & October 2017 and in April 2018 by Bhim Singh Rawat, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), Delhi and Siddharth Agarwal, Veditam India Foundation, Calcutta.

The objective of the report is to share the observations with common public as we have done in past which can be seen here Part 1, Part, 2, & Part 3. In future also we would try to prepare similar reports to highlight the unexplored aspects and lesser-known stories of Ken river. The Hindi version of this report can also be seen here.

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केन नदी को जीवित रखते, झीरा, झीना, डबरा, डबरी, दहार
Ken River

केन नदी को जीवित रखते, झीरा, झीना, डबरा, डबरी, दहार

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(Feature Image:-  पवई में सिमरा बहादुर के पास केन नदी के घुमाव पर बने दहार का एक फोटो। (Image taken during Ken River Yatra by SANDRP & Veditum) 

यह रिपोर्ट भीम सिंह रावत, साउथ एशिया नेटवर्क आन डैमस्, रिवर्स एंड पीपल (सैनड्रप) दिल्ली और सिद्धार्थ अग्रवाल, वेदितम इंडिया फाउंडेशन, कलकता द्वारा केन नदी की तैंतीस दिवसीय पदयात्रा के अनुभव पर आधारित है। इस पदयात्रा को जून एवं अक्टूबर 2017 और अप्रैल 2018 के दौरान तीन चरणों में पूरा किया गया था। रिपोर्ट का उद्देश्य यात्रा से मिले अनुभवों और समझ को साँझा करना है। पहले भी हम नदी यात्रा के विभिन पक्षों के बारे में लिख चुके हैं। जिसे आप यहाँ पढ़ सकते हैं –एक, दो, तीन,। आगे भी हम केन नदी के अनसुने पहलुओं को उजागर करने का प्रयास जारी रखेंगे।

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April 2023: Breach in Micro Hydel Canal Damages crops in Punjab
Dam floods · Dams

April 2023: Breach in Micro Hydel Canal Damages crops in Punjab

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(Feature Image: Breach in GGSSTP micro hydel canal on April 26, 2023. Image by The Tribune)

A sudden breach in a micro hydel canal of Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Plant (GGSSTP) has damaged standing wheat crops on hundreds of acres of land in Ranjitpura village of Ropar district, Punjab. The breached occurred near Batarla around 08:00 am on April 24, 2023. 

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Sikkim: Landslide near NHPC’s Teesta V dam in March 2023
Hydro Disaster

Sikkim: Landslide near NHPC’s Teesta V dam in March 2023

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(Feature Image: Screen grab of Sikkim Spectators field visit video report interviewing landslide affected local people)

NHPC’s Teesta V HEP dam site has again witnessed a disastrous landslide. The incident occurred between 02:00 am and 03:00 am on Sunday, March 26, 2023 in Sokpay village area under Dikchu Zang block of Gangtok district. The same morning, Gyatso Lepcha of Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), Sikkim alerted SANDRP about the landslide.

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Dam Floods, Failures and Disasters in 2022
Dam floods

Dam Floods, Failures and Disasters in 2022

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This annual overview highlights the dam induced flood disasters, dam failure incidents in India during 2022. This year, the massive floods in Godavari have exposed the flood vulnerability of giant projects like Polavaram and Kaleshwaram. Also there have been multiple dam failures and dam induced floods in Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In absence of coordination and data sharing Hirakud induced floods in Mahanadi basin have affected several villages in Odisha and Chhattisgarh. There have been several instances of unscientific operations of dams and the operators continue to hide behind TINA (There Is No Alternative) excuse. The functioning of CWC as key flood forecasting and management agency has not shown any significant improvement. However, now it has accepted that faulty dam operations can lead to flood in downstream areas. Please see links to our 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 annual compilations on the subject.    

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DRP 10×22: All Pervasiveness of Climate Change and Anthropocene Impacts
DRP News Bulletin

DRP 10×22: All Pervasiveness of Climate Change and Anthropocene Impacts

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(Feature Image:- Odisha: 10 stranded in flash flood after sudden release of water from Gohira dam. Source: TNIE )

A large number of reports in this week’s news bulletin from SANDRP are tied by a common threat. The report in NYT about how the South Asian Monsoon is becoming more intense. How the droughts like the one in western US are becoming more likely.

In Bengal people killed in October rains while they were doing visarjan of Durga idols and in Odisha people stuck by sudden release of water from a dam. In these cases of W Bengal and Odisha, strangely, there was no warning and no one is even asking why. In both cases it is the destruction of the river in the that led to create the crisis, but again no questions are being asked.

The report of death by avalanches, the more frequent landslides in monsoons are also in the same league. The SW Monsoon is officially over as per India Meteorological Department, but even as we write, the extreme floods in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are breaching the Highest Flood Levels in several rivers.

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