(Featue Image: A CDO team in May 2025 inspects the Srisailam Dam to assess its structural safety. Souce: TNIE)

It’s been five years since the Parliament passed the Dam Safety Act and the institutions including National and State Dam Safety committees and authorities were set up. However, how safe are our dams and how far have we achieved the Dam Safety Compliance norms? The answer to that question is unlikely to be confidence inspiring. This feeling is reinforced with a number of reports in recent weeks.

(Feature Image: River Ravi at Makora Pattan. Photo: Abhay Kanvinde)

Rivers are the most important eco-systems, providing numerous economic, environmental social and cultural benefits. And in answer to the question, who governs India’s Rivers, we are generally likely to get response blank stares. Same is the likely response about the state of India’s rivers, who monitors our Rivers and so on.

(Feature Image: Godavari river in Nashik. Source: SANDRP Guest blog by Shilpa Dahake in Dec. 2017)

This week, the Question of Cities (QofC) has, with their focus on Godavari River in Nashik city in view of the 2027 Simhastha Kumbha Mela, once again sought to bring the question to centre stage: Can Kumbh Mela help improve the state of Godavari River rather than worsen it as seems to be the case currently? QofC has gone into depth related to various aspects that are worsening the state of Godavari River in Nashik, including concretization of the river bed and river banks, cutting down of large number of trees, destruction of kunds and generally worsening the water quality in the river. Currently, each Kumbh Mela seems to leave the river in worsening state, rather than improve it.