It was great to see that river figured prominently in the just concluded Delhi Assembly Elections where BJP has come to power in the state after 27 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured Delhi that the BJP government will make every effort to clean Yamuna. “It may be a long haul but Mother Yamuna will surely bless our efforts,” he said. Will this help the cause of the River?
Continue reading “An Action Plan for Yamuna in Delhi”Tag: DDA
Yamuna Manthan 020125: River Dying by Design or Default?
(Feature Image: Instream mechanized mining going on in Yamuna river at Gumthala Rao near Karnal-Yamuna Nagar border in Haryana in Oct. 2024. Source: Yamauna Nadi Mitra Mandli)
This twelfth edition of monthly Yamuna updates and the first one of the new year 2025, rounds up the critical issues impacting the river eco-system during the past year. The updates of the past one month only hint towards the bleak future the river is heading to. Without addressing the adverse effects and exploring cost effective alternatives, foundation stones of two massive river interlinking projects namely Ken-Betwa and Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal have been laid. The work of unjustifiable Renuka and Lakhwar dams in climatically sensitive and geologically fragile region of Himalaya is going on.
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Yamuna Manthan 050924: Changing parameters of Ken-Betwa Project needs fresh appraisal?
(Feature Image: Dry Ken river beneath bridge at Pandvan in Amanganj, Panna in April 2018. Image taken during Ken river walk by SANDRP & Veditum India)
The controversial Ken-Betwa Interlinking project is undergoing several changes being proposed by central and state governments of UP and MP. Firstly, there are plans to build two new barrages at Pailani and Banda and renovate Beriyapur and Pariksha weirs and Barua Sagar dam apart from renovation of 15 dams and large ponds in Mahoba district. Then, the construction of a 21 km link channel will require 271 ha of forest land.
Similarly, the CM of MP has requested to increase irrigation capacity of Patne-Biarma Irrigation Scheme from 90,100 ha to 2,50,000 ha under the interlinking plan. On the other hand, the CM of UP has suggested inclusion of Hamirpur district in the plan.
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Yamuna Manthan 080824: Welcome Judicial Decisions for River Floodplain
(Feature Image: Yamuna floodplain downstream old railway bridge Delhi. March 2024, SANDRP)
In the past one month there have been some interesting judicial interventions taking up the matters of floodplain, pollution and aquatic eco-system of the Yamuna River in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Of these, the most significant one is the NGT order on July 11 fining MoJS & CWC of ₹50 000 each for the non-demarcation of floodplain in Agra.
The fine was to be submitted before Aug. 06,2024 hearing but there is no update available so far on this. It is also not clear whether Yamuna floodplain has been demarcated and officially notified in Agra stretch or not. Earlier in May 2019 and March 2022, the NGT had asked for demarcation of Yamuna floodplain in Agra and Mathura respectively.
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Yamuna Manthan 040724: A year after historic floods, where is River Governance?
(Feature Image: A view of overflowing Yamuna river at Wazirabad in New Delhi on 13 July. Image Credit: HT PRINT/Live Mint)
It has been a year since Delhi witnessed one of the worst flood spells in Yamuna after four and half decade. The unusual deluge in river on July13, 2023 breached the highest flood level (HFL) 207.49 meter at Old Delhi Railway Station (DRS) attained on September 6,1978 by 1.17 m margin and set 208.66 m as new HFL.
Apart from severely impacting thousands of people in the city, the July 2023 Yamuna flood caught the concerned govt agencies responsible for flood mitigation by surprise and exposed the way city planners particularly DDA, NHAI have been dealing with river floodplains.
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Restore Yamuna Floodplain Raised by Illegal Soil Dumping near Shashtri Park, Delhi
(Feature Image: Experts object elevation work on Yamuna floodplain in North East Delhi. Source: ToI, March 29, 2024)
This is an open letter to concerned government officials regarding restoration of Yamuna floodplain illegally raised and levelled by Forest Department, Delhi and DDA at Bela Farm near Shashtri Park, Delhi.
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Yamuna Manthan 030424: DDA Continues to Destroy River Floodplains
(Feature Image: Huge part of Yamuna floodplain raised by massive soil dumping near Bela Estate just upstream Shashtri Park Metro Depot in North East Delhi. Photo Credit: Vivek Nigam, Photo Journalist Amar Ujala, Source: Principal Correspondent in Amar Ujala, Delhi)
In latest example proving Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) utter failure in protecting Yamuna River floodplains from abuse and encroachment, a large part of floodplain land has been levelled by soil dumping thus raising it by several meters at Bela Estate farm near Shashtri Park Metro Depot. As per the reports, the DDA has allotted about 19.5 ha of floodplain to forest dept for compensatory plantation. The plantation work at the site like at most of the sites on Yamuna floodplain in Delhi has suffered damages during July 2023 floods. And the levelling at the Bela Estate site is being done in the name of protecting the compensatory plantation.
The site is among few remaining floodplain patches available for spread of flood waters. The floodplain area on western bank at the location is less and already developed. Due to natural gradient, the part of floodplain on eastern side undergoes periodic floods. The patch was under several feet floodwater in July 2023. The floodplain immediately downstream the site has already been encroached by the bridge road, metro depot and buildings. Hence, raising of floodplain here would not only reduce spread of flood waters but also hamper the groundwater recharge.
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DRP NB 010424: As Krishna basin faces drought and scarcity, water diverted from the basin to Konkan
(Feature image: Map of Bhivpuri Hydropower Project, one of the Tata Dams)
Large parts of South India, including Maharashtra are facing depleted reservoir levels with the beginning of summer and water scarcity. However, the Krishna Bheema basin, the second largest basin of peninsular India, is diverting water to outside the basin to Konkan. The Krishna Bheema basin has the largest live storages of Maharashtra in Koyna dam (1347.5 MCM) and Tata dams (617.67 MCM), but the water in those storages won’t be available to the drought hit residents of Krishna basin in water scarce Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
This is because Koyna and Tata dams divert the water from Krishna Bheema basins to Konkan for power generation. Even in March, according to Maharashtra Load Dispatch Centre, Koyna had generated 128.87 Million Units (MU) of power and Tata Dams had generated 130.47 MU, both by March 30. This implies diversion of millions of Cubic meters of water from Koyna and Tata Dams during March 2024, which mostly gone down from Konkan to Arabian sea.
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August 2022: Yamuna flood reclaims encroached floodplains in Delhi
(Feature Image: RMC plants located in active floodplain of Yamuna at Noida More submerged in flood water on Aug. 13, 2022. Image Credit:- Vikrant Tongad, SAFE)
A much awaited flood spell has flowed through Delhi during August 13-14, 2022. It came after more than two months of south west monsoon. Usually by this time, Yamuna river would have witnessed two or three flood spells in national capital lending a fresh lease of life to one of the most polluted rivers of India.
The small scale flood spell in the river has invaded parts of floodplains under abuse and encroachment by government agencies in open defiance of National Green Tribunal (NGT) January 13, 2015 judgement[i]. Apart from this flood, Delhi stretch of the river has witnessed few more abnormal events in this monsoon season so far.
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Revival Of Hauz Khas Lake, Delhi: A Pioneering Adventure of INTACH
Guest Blog by Manu Bhatnagar
Even as the water crisis gathers pace time is playing out a requiem for lakes and wetlands. Poor understanding of hydrology, greed driven capture of wetlands by real estate, the adoption of the shortest straight line path by infrastructure development agencies, the effort by engineers to make everything straight and neat by concretization, the plummeting of groundwater tables and the interception of free flowing surface runoff by alteration of basin characteristics are the major drivers of the rapid extinction of our waterbodies.
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SANDRP 