DRP 220822: Salutes to Vimalbhai

August 22, 2022February 23, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image:- Vimal Bhai with a group of villagers in Uttarakhand. Photo: Matu Jansangathan/ The Wire)

It’s very sad occasion. Vimalbhai, who has been tirelessly active on issues related to dams, rivers and environment in Uttarakhand in particular and India in general, left us on Aug 15, 2022 for his journey beyond this world. He was a remarkably dedicated, committed and yet always smiling, simple man with simple needs. His loss is already being felt. May his soul rest in peace and may his friends and family get the strength to bear the loss.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 080822: Why is Centre not taking action against violations, defects of Kaleshwaram Project of Telangana?

August 8, 2022February 23, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature image source: Pratidin News)

Union Water Resources or what is now called Jal Shakti minister Shri Gajendra Shekhawat made a rare and rather interesting statement this week about Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project of Telangana, supposed to be the world’s biggest lift irrigation project, India’s most expensive ever irrigation project. The Union Minister publicly said that the Kaleshwaram project did not have all the clearances, project thus involved violations, and had defects, leading to submergence of three barrages and a massive power house last month. It is not clear if the Union Minister has also written to this effect to the Telangana state government and also taken action against the project. This is because the allegations made by the Union Minister are about such a huge project and are serious in nature.

If the Union Minister has done neither, as seems to be the case, he hope he is doing something on these lines soon. We do not expect a responsible Union Minister not take any action on such an important matter and is only making such statements for public consumption (incidentally, he seems to have made these statements in Karnataka, not in Telangana). Questions will be raised if the Union Minister fails to take such an action.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 01 Aug 2022: Dams reduce sediment load in rivers leading to higher coastal erosion

August 1, 2022February 23, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature image: Delta Land Loss Mechanisms. Source Wikimedia Commons)

A new study this week has reminded us what has been known for long. Dams not only store water but also trap the sediment flowing in the river. Whatever smaller quantity of water flow from dams to downstream areas, has much lower or no silt. A lot of that silt was supposed to reach the coast, helping fight against the erosion of the coast due to sea tides and waves. With drastically lower sediment reaching the coasts, higher coastal erosion is the result. While climate change is definitely contributing to the increased coast erosion due to more frequent and higher intensity storms from the sea, the role of dams tend to work as force multiplier in increasing the coastal erosion due to less sediment reaching the coasts from river.

While a new study by a Pune University has highlighted this phenomena in case of Godavari river, peninsular India’s biggest river, this is also happening at most other rivers and where they meet the coasts. As in case of Farakka, closer the terminal dam is to the coast, greater is its effectiveness to trap the river sediment and higher is its contribution likely to be to the increase in coastal erosion.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 250722: State of Yamuna River ignored by NMCG and MoEF

July 25, 2022February 23, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature Image:- A drain choked with solid waste and untreated effluents running through Yamuna floodplains in Mathura. Source: News 18, 13072022.)

This year, even in the middle of monsoon, the Yamuna river in the national capital is in such a pathetic state, there is insufficient flows in the most of the days. The govt may jump to blame it on poor monsoon rains, ignoring that the upstream dams like the recently commissioned Vyasi dam not releasing water in the downstream is also a major reason beside the unsustainable riverbed mining and also dumping of solid waste in the upstream, including due to the building of mindless projects like the Char Dham highway, all in the news this week. Both National Mission on Clean Ganga (NMCG) and Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) should be concerned about this lack of flows downstream from the dam and other issues listed above, but they clearly seem least bothered.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 23 May 2022: Jal Jeevan Mission stalled for financial mess; there are other issues too

May 23, 2022February 21, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) one of flagship schemes of Central Government aiming to provide tap connection to every households in the country by 2024 has been affected by financial constraints as per the statement of Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Jal Shakti Minister published in an interview to the Live Mint on May 16, 2022. The Minister has also admitted that the progress of work has suffered due to inflation in commodity prices.

There can be some truth to the Jal Shakti Minister’s claim that ‘commodity super cycle’ slowing down the implementation of JJM. But a closer look reveals that blaming ‘commodity super cycle’ for slowing down of the project is also a convenient way to deflect attention from poor policy planning and execution that has marked the JJM project.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 16 May 2022: Welcome effort at Groundwater monitoring in India’s villages

May 16, 2022February 21, 2026 SANDRP3 Comments

(Feature Image: Women use an open source groundwater monitoring tool that enables collection of water level data of wells and its collation on a web platform for easy access by all. Source: FES/IWP)

The Groundwater (its closer to dug well monitoring than full GW monitoring) Monitoring Campaign using the Groundwater Monitoring Tool (an App) across the villages in India started two years ago by the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) as reported by the India Water Portal seems like a much needed kind of campaign to monitor groundwater levels (& quality where that is also being monitored) across the villages in India. The presentation on the India Observatory (an initiative of FES) website lists some 40 very highly credible organisations from across India in 2020 when the GWM campaign started. This is certainly very welcome initiative that has huge potential to improve India’s groundwater management.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 09 May 2022: Forensic Team report: Michigan 2020 Dams failures were preventable

May 9, 2022February 21, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

A Forensic engineering Team appointed by the USA’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission post the May 19, 2020 failure of Edinville and Sanford Dams in Michigan state of USA has published a 502 page comprehensive report on the dam failure within less than two years of the disaster. The full report published on May 4, 2022 is in public domain and has concluded that the dam failures were foreseeable and preventable.

There are a number of things we can learn from this. Firstly that there are such credible independent assessment of dam failures, we have none in India even after multiple dam failures each year. Secondly, such assessments are promptly in public domain. Thirdly, the reports are completed in less then two years. We have none of these. Even the Dam Safety Act passed by the parliament does not have provisions for any of these.

There are a lot of implications for India here. It means for example that we will never know the real reasons for the dam related disasters. Secondly, we won’t be able to learn any lessons. Thirdly we will never be able to improve the governance of our dams and rivers. Fourthly, we won’t be able to fix accountability.

There is so much at stake related to governance of our dams, but we seem completely unconcerned about it. There is a lot we can learn from others here.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 25 April 2022: Bad news for dams: Vyasi, Renuka, Parbati, Betwa, Ken Betwa, Ganga waterways, Hydropower false climate solutions…

April 25, 2022February 21, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

This week seems to have brought rather too many bad news for big dams in India, it seems. The Vyasi hydropower project on Yamuna river in Uttarakhand, inaugurated by the Prime Minister Shri Modi in Dec 2021, is facing plethora of problems even before its formal commissioning, including scarcity of water, mass fish death, displacement without rehabilitation of people, among others.

In Himachal Pradesh, the stage-1 forest clearance of the Renuka dam, whose foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister Shri Modi on Dec 28, 2021, has lapsed, 12.5 years after it was given. Now the project need to restart the whole clearance process. There is also news of massive leakage of water and silt collapse in Parbati 2 project in HP.

In Betwa basin, an exasperated Jal Shakti Minister has ordered n inquiry into the Dam project. This, while the Ken Betwa project that the Union Govt has been desperate in pushing, still does not have crucial clearances.

A well researched article by Avli Verma shows that the Ganga waterways project does not have environment clearance, nor environment impact assessment even as the National Green Tribunal has adjourned the hearing demanding that for FOURTEEN times even as Union Environment Ministry quietly sits on the issue.

And finally, sound analysis by international experts lists ten reasons why hydropower is a false climate solution. It may be good idea to take a pause on these big dams, hydropower projects and other river affecting projects and rather take stoke of the way we are governing our rivers and these projects?

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Groundwater

World Water Day 2022: India’s Positive Groundwater Stories

March 21, 2022March 22, 2022 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature image: Suranga: Tunnelling the earth for water https://www.deccanherald.com/spectrum/suranga-tunnelling-the-earth-for-water-1080713.html (12 Feb. 2022)

March 22 is celebrated as World Water Day (WWD) since 1993 to underline the significance of freshwater resources. The theme for 2022 WWD is Groundwater which has become India’s water lifeline at least for the last four decades for most of urban and rural areas, be it supply of potable, irrigation or industrial use. The large scale unsustainable extraction and pollution of this invisible finite resource has been causing grave concern.

However, there are several indigenous viable alternatives and governance mechanism which can reverse the groundwater depletion trend and fulfil water requirements. We here compile top 10 positive groundwater stories of last one year. Similarly, the second part covers urban water options and the third part highlights positive water stories. It is worth mentioning that most of these remarkable efforts are result of MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Authority) scheme.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 14 Feb 2022: Wake up call: Chairman of Supreme Court HPC Chopra Resigns

February 14, 2022February 21, 2026 SANDRP2 Comments

(Feature Image: Pillars of elevated road eating into Ganga’s actual riverbed at Rishikesh. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP, 08 Oct. 2021)

The resignation of Shri Ravi Chopra, chairman of the Supreme Court appointed High Powered Committed to report about the implications and dimensions of the Char Dham Highway in fragile Himalayan region is yet another wake up call for all concerned, including the Supreme Court. Chopra has said that following the Dec 14, 2021 order of the Supreme Court in the Char Dham case, the panel “has been shattered”. Chopra’s resignation letter dated Jan 27, 2022 has only now being made public. The order of Dec 14, 2021 was not only contrary to the order of Sept 8, 2020, but also limited the HPC’s role even in monitoring to less than 30% of the road, that too when the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have consistently ignored the recommendations of the HPC. Will the resignation have any impact on the apex court of the project or the MoRTH?

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