DRP NB 260224: Karnataka faces Drought, Farmer Distress, water scarcity

February 26, 2024February 28, 2024 SANDRP1 Comment

(Section 144 imposed near Bhadra Canals to stop illegal water lifting amid supply crisis. Representational image. TNIE)

As the two reports from media today shows, Karnataka is facing drought in 223 of 236 talukas, water scarcity and even farmer distress and suicides. The state government is aware of the situation and taking necessary measures. The situation could be similar in a number of states including Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and even some of the eastern and northern states. The North Himalayan states have experienced hugely below normal snowfall in the ongoing winter. The Winter Rainfall at all India level for the period Jan 1 2024 to Feb 25 2024 is already 31% below normal.

There is role of global warming and El Nino in this and these factors are going to persist at least till the end of Indian Summer. So the governments both at centre and in states needs to be ready for the crisis.

The current Karnataka govt is awake to reality and seems to be taking the appropriate steps. Karnataka had deficit rainfall in SW Monsoon 2023.

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DRP NB 190224: NBWL decision of no clearance without compliance of previous projects

February 19, 2024February 19, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

The decision of National Board of Wild Life (NBWL) not to clear any projects affecting wildlife areas till there is compliance certificate from previous such projects is certainly welcome, was long overdue. We hope NBWL comes out with clearly defined norms for implementing this decision and also implements the decision in letter and spirit. Needless to add, the compliance certificate must come through an independent assessment done by a body that involves no conflict of interest and has independent track record.

Unfortunately, the news this week that NBWL has given green light to the Jamrani Dam in Uttarakhand without a clearance from National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a significant dampener. Similarly, the past track record of NBWL, including the way it gave clearance to Ken Betwa River Link Project does not inspire too much confidence that NBWL is serious about this.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 120224: Report of Parl Com on Yamuna wants 23 cumecs water in the river

February 12, 2024November 18, 2024 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature Image: Flowless Yamuna downstream Vyasi HEP, Dehradun in June 2023. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP)

In a welcome move, the Parliamentary Committee report on Yamuna River has suggested at least 23 cumecs (Cubic Meters for Second) water needs to be released from Hathnikund barrage at least in nine non monsoon months from Oct to June as per the recommendation of the National Institute of Hydrology, a govt of India body. The report has said that almost no water is being released for the river from the Wazirabad barrage in Delhi.

The 10 cumecs water now being released (how regularly even this is being released is also a question) is inadequate as most of it evaporates or percolates soon after it is released. The committee has asked the Union Jal Shakti Minister to take urgent steps in this direction. In fact, the committee should have given a time limit for this. We hope these urgent steps will be taken soon.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 050224: IMD needs to improve forecasting and sharing, but doing the opposite?

February 5, 2024 SANDRP4 Comments

(Feature Image: Climate change catoon by Jug Suraiya & Partho Sengupta. ToI, 23 June 2018)

The decision of the IMD to shut down 199 of its district agromet units across India is disturbing on a number of counts. In the era of climate change when the key parameters are undergoing such rapid change, there is need for increasing monitoring and sharing of climate information by the IMD and need to in fact decentralize the whole effort. But this decision of IMD is going against this basic requirement.

In fact, the IMD has become a sort of holy cow, while in reality its performance in monitoring, forecasting and sharing information in time is far from satisfactory. This is increasingly evident every year when IMD fails to provide not only accurate, actionable, rainfall forecasts sufficiently in advance to help reduce the flood disasters and also take timely decisions on reservoir operations, IMD also fails to provide even timely information about the actual rainfall on ground and how that rainfall is going to get converted to inflows in rivers and reservoirs. Similarly, the district agromet units can provide farmer level and decentralized accurate rainfall monitoring and forecasting information that can help farmers take timely decisions.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 290124: Wetlands and Human Wellbeing: So little reflected in wetlands governance

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 SANDRP1 Comment

(Chest nut clutivators removing water hycinth from Giri taal of Kashipur in US Nagar, Uttarakhand in April 2023. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP)

As the world approaches the World Wetlands Day on Feb 2, we notice a proliferation of news related to wetlands, but mostly bad news in this week’s DRP NB: Loktak lake in Manipur facing impact of inland waterways project, the Supreme Court having to intervene for the Futula lake in Nagpur, TN Govt telling NGT that 38% of Pallikaranai marshland is under encroachment, in Bangalore, NGT is asking for response from KSPCB and others regarding the lake buffer zone encroachment. There is also a lot of bad news about the worsening state of our rivers, including Ganga.

One piece of good news is that people have come out with their own plan for restoration of Ennore wetland in TN. In Assam, Maguri Motapung Bill is regaining biodiversity after earlier being polluted by oil spill, but that is only control of damage earlier. Similarly, while it is good news that SC has intervened to protect Futula lake in Nagpur, but the fact that the govt wanted to encroach on it in the name of “temporary” construction is not at all good news.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 220124: Welcome news about Rainfall related issues

January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

There are a number of welcome developments this week related to rainfall. Firstly, forecasters say that the El Nino may start weakening from Feb and may weaken by June 2024 and neutralize thereafter. This can possibly mean good rainfall in SW Monsoon 2024.

Second bit of welcome development is that IMD, on turning 150, has declared that it will set up more doppler radars, rainfall measuring stations and use supercomputers to predict state and district level rainfall, currently it only does at national and four regions.

The study of tehsil level rainfall trends over the last four decades is the third piece of welcome development on rainfall. We need many more studies like this, possibly from IMD itself. More details given below.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 150124: The Catchment degradation in Cauvery Basin

January 15, 2024January 15, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

The study by Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has brought to light one of the key reasons for the water problems of Cauvery basin: 12850 Sq km of Cauvery basin has lost natural vegetation over the fifty years between 1965 and 2016. The trend is likely to have continued, possibly at an accelerated pace in the eight years since 2016. It may be useful to assess the hydrological implications of this massive destruction of the Cauvery basin.

SANDRP has been highlighting that the reason for the more frequent floods and followed by water scarcity and drought, in spite of somewhat increased rainfall under changing climate is exactly this, the degradation of the Cauvery catchment, including destruction of local water bodies, groundwater recharging mechanisms and natural vegetation.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 080124: Supreme Court stays Sham post facto clearances

January 8, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: A Ramganga tributary before joining the river at Marchula, Ramnagar in Nov. 2022. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP)

Post facto environment clearances are indeed a sham as the Hindustan Times Edit has said. It is welcome that the Supreme Court of India has stayed, on Jan 2, 2024, the MoEF memorandums allowing such post facto environmental clearances. Following a petition filed by the Mumbai based environmental group Vanashakti, the sham practice that has been going on since March 2017. Such clearances are clearly contradictory, in letter and spirit to the prior environment clearances as required under the EIA notification of 2006.

The Sham practice should have been stayed much earlier, for example when the Madras High Court gave an interim stay on the MoEF notification of 2017. But unfortunately, the Supreme Court then interpreted that the Madras High Court order will only be limited to Tamil Nadu. Or it may have been stayed earlier by NGT.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 25122023: Justice Swaminathan: SC closes its eyes to big-scale environmental violations

December 25, 2023December 25, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image:- Justice G.R. Swaminathan of the Madras HC speaking at a seminar organised jointly by Madurai Bar Association and Wildlife Trust of India in Madurai on Sunday (Dec. 17). Photo Credit: G. MOORTHY/The Hindu)

The statement of Justice R Swaminathan of Madras High Court is so true: When it comes to violations in big ticket environment projects, the Supreme Court closes its eyes, including the current CJI DY Chandrachud. As he mentioned the SC has such a poor track record whether it is Narmada or Tehri project or the Kundakulam Nuclear Power project or even the Navi Mumbai Airport project. The list can be much longer.

It is indeed high time that there is a comprehensive review of track record of higher judiciary (including the Supreme Court, High Courts and even the National Green Tribunal) in judging violations in environmental governance of big projects. Even on eminently justiciable matters like adequacy of rehabilitation of the displaced, the adequacy of environment and social impact assessments, adequacy of public consultation process, adequacy of environmental appraisal, monitoring or compliances, not only the track record of the governments pathetic, but the track record of higher judiciary is also nothing to write about. Unfortunately, there is no pressure on the judiciary to amend this.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 181223: Varanasi’s illegal tent city inaugurated by Prime Minister in Jan 2023

December 18, 2023December 18, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Collage of Sentinel Hub satellite images of Tent City location in Ganga river bed in Varanasi from Nov. 26, 2022 to Dec. 11, 2023)

While the NGT putting a stay on the Varanasi Tent city and imposing a fine of Rs 25000 on MoEF for not responding to NGT about how the turtle sanctuary was denotified is welcome, we hope NGT takes it to its logical conclusion. It is strange, to say the least to see the NMCG telling NGT through its one page report dated Dec 13 2023 that the Varanasi Development Authority proposal dated Nov 28 2023 for tent city is under consideration! The Tent city companies were fined by NGT, but UP PCB is yet to do anything to collect the fine. Most interestingly, the Prime Minister, no less, inaugurated the tent city project on January 13 2023, over 11 months back! And very shockingly, none of the National Media is even reporting this remarkable situation.

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