DRP 250923: World Rivers vs Indian Rivers on Rivers Day 2023

September 25, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Najafgarh drain loaded with polluted water joining River Yamuna downstream Wazirabad barrage in National Capital in June 2023: SANDRP)

Sept 24 is celebrated as the World Rivers day since 2005, the tradition started by river advocate Mark Angelo, who used to celebrate BC (British Columbia in Canada) Rivers day since 1980. There is some good news for rivers across the world in terms of decommissioning of dams, improving environment flows, movements to clean rivers, improve fish migration, protection of flood plains, room for the river, decommissioning of channelisation projects, among others.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 180923: Floodplain loss, the biggest in Asia, disaster in the making

September 18, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Ongoing ghat work along Yamuna at Qudsia ghat, ISBT Dellhi. SANDRP, June 2023)

A floodplain, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, is “any land area susceptible to being inundated by floodwaters from any source”. According to the report “Human alterations of the global floodplains 1992–2019”, over 460,000 sqkms of floodplain area was lost to agriculture, while another 140,000 sqkms was redeveloped to new areas over the existing floodplain. Continent-wise, Asia lost the biggest area of floodplains — a little over 200,000 sqkms — among all the continents. It was followed by South America (92,000 sqkms) and Africa (73,000 sqkms).

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 110923: Another independent institution-CEC destroyed

September 11, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Ramganga River near Marchula. SANDRP 08 Sept. 2023)

The Govt of India’s Sept 5 2023 notification reconstituting the Central Empowered Committee completely destroys the independent nature of this institution of accountability and course correction. This institution, set up by the Supreme Court in 2002 and reconstituted in 2008, worked as eyes and ears of the Supreme Court on environmental issues. The new committee has no independent members, it will be constituted by the MoEF, MoEF itself has such an abysmally poor track record.

The notification, reports said, diluted the CEC’s autonomy on four key counts: the committee will report to the ministry, instead of the SC; the ministry will pick all the members and the SC will have no role in the process; the ministry, and not the court, will fund the committee; the provision of having two NGOs in the committee has been done away with.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 04092023: Will National Ganga Mission too fail to clean up Ganga?

September 4, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Untreated industrial effluents being dumped in Drain No. 6, Sonipat in May 2023.)

More than 7 years have passed since the central government launched Rs. 20, 000 crores Namami Gange Programme in May 2015 replacing Ganga Action Plan (GAP) and created National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) a nodal agency to implement the programme.

The NMCG has already missed the target of cleaning the Ganga by 2019 and then by 2020 due to improper planning and Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) as accepted by G. Asok Kumar, Director General (DG), NMCG in an interview to The Week in January 2023 further extending the target to 2026.

Though Namami Gange aimed to adopt a basin wise approach with focus on e-flows, afforestation, revival of tributaries, biodiversity conservation in participatory manner; so far it has extensively worked on creation of sewage treatment infrastructures in the states along the main stem of the river.

Despite that the ground situation is far from improving as shown in the The Hindu report below which reveals that about 80 percent of the overall budget is being spent on sewage infrastructure creation and by 2026, the treatment plants capacity would be able to treat at the most 60 percent of sewage generated only along the main stem of the Ganga river.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 280823: Defund nature destroying activities

August 28, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Construction work of World Bank funded 444Mw Vishugad-Pipaltkoti hydro dam project is going. The Developer have been found dumping muck in massive amount in river and carrying out blasting work evening during monsoon time. Image Source: Social Media)

This is indeed the key message if we are serious about tackling climate change with any sincerity. The adverse impacts of mindless activities in the name of development, are acting as force multipliers for climate change impacts as we are experiencing first hand, latest example being in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

Particularly when the “development” activities are done without credible project specific and cumulative impact assessment, genuine public consultation process and confidence inspiring monitoring and compliance processes, as is the norm.

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Yamuna River

The 2023 Yamuna floods of Delhi only a trailer of bigger floods to come in future?

August 12, 2023 SANDRP2 Comments

(Feature Image:- Boats tied to Yamuna river bank at Wazirabad Barrage in June 2023. SANDRP)

In this detailed interview by Questions of Cities; Bhim Singh Rawat, associate coordinator, SANDRP talks on multiple issues affecting the Yamuna and offers some corrective measures to improve the overall condition of the river. The interview has already been published by Question of Cities and can be seen here. The interview also covers possible reasons behind unusual floods in Yamuna in Delhi in July 2023 and the detailed SANDRP blog on the issue can be seen here.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 310723: Disastrous SHORT TERMISM in Urban India

July 31, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature Image: Earthmovers on restoration work as massive landslide damaged buildings at Shamti after heavy monsoon rainfall, in Solan district, on July 11, 2023 | Photo Credit: PTI/The Hindu)

The Supreme Court’s notice on Shimla development plan that lacks balance between development and environment is welcome and one hopes the apex court takes the issue to its logical conclusion. The consequences of unplanned and ill planned urban developments are a clear invitation to major disasters, including floods, landslides, traffic congestions, air and water pollution, health hazards and also water shortages. The Shimla Master plan also violates the NGT directions with complete impunity.

This is exactly what the EDIT in the Times of India on Mussoorie misery, dangerous short termism that pervades across sectors in Urban India with no policy to guide Urban Water sector or for that matter any other sector.

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Dams

DRP 240723: Urgently need parameters that will truly reflect rainfall pattern

July 24, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: – IMD’s District Wise Cumulative Rainfall Map for 01 June to 23 July 2023)

India received 389.2 mm rainfall till 0830 hrs on July 23, 2023 in SW monsoon. This being 5% above the normal rainfall till this date of 370.9 mm, India Meteorological Department and with it, the whole nation calls it Normal Monsoon. But anyone who is familiar with the rainfall pattern across India will not call it Normal.

We must urgently develop new parameters for describing the monsoon that also take into account spatial (across states, districts, Tehsils, blocks) and temporal variability. These parameters should take into account the departure from normal for each unit of space for each day and combine such departures to arrive at a figure that will better describe the monsoon for each unit of space. It can also take into consideration the high intensity rainfall events as also the longer dryer patches. This will help us understand not only the nature of monsoon rainfall, but also alert the farmers and everyone else but also help us understand how this pattern is changing over the years. This should not be so difficult for IMD to initiate and accomplish quickly. When aggregated at river basin level, this will also help us understand the actual rainfall pattern in each river basin but also how it is changing. Is this too much to ask?

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 260623: National Framework for Sediment Management

June 26, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

A National Framework for Sediment Management is certainly a long standing requirement and any move in that direction would have been welcome. Not only because the sediment accumulation destroys storage capacity of India’s Dams, created at such massive costs. But also because sediment is an integral part of river flow and also very important for the rivers to stop or reduce erosion at deltas. There are other issues related to sediment including creation and disposal of toxic sediment and impact of sediment free water flowing downstream from the hydropower projects.

But we need much more serious and sincere efforts in this direction than what has been suggested in following government press release. The movement on such an important subject is so snail paced, half hearted, non-comprehensive, unscientific and non-sincere that it is not clear how this is going to help.

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Yamuna River

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

June 26, 2023June 26, 2023 SANDRP2 Comments

(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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