DRP NB 23 Nov 2020: Pune Citizens Expose illegal River Sand Mining in Pune City

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

This is remarkable, first of its kind of development where the citizens of the city have come together to expose the illegal River sand mining in the Pune City in the middle of the night. They alerted the police, who did take action, caught one of the culprits along with Poclain machine. The rest of the machines, which too should have been guarded, were taken away by the miners after police left, it seems. Salutes to all the citizens involved including Vaishali Patkar and Pushkar Kulkarni and their supporting organisations including Jeevit Nadi, Aundh Vikas Mandal.

It is only when citizens come together in this way that there is any possibility of stopping the menace of illegal sand mining and other menace affecting our rivers. Kudos to the Pune Citizens to show the way for the rest of the country too and hope such collective efforts by the Pune citizens will continue to show the way forward for all concerned.

The prompt action by the Pune police also should be appreciated and one only hopes the police will investigate the case professionally and produce a strong legal case, apply all the relevant sections of IPC, Environment Protection Act and Mines and Minerals Development Act, all the government department will play their role and bring everyone guilty to book with exemplary punishment. Pune citizens will surely keep a watch on this.

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Sand Mining

193 dead in River Sand Mining incidents in India in 2019-20

November 22, 2020December 19, 2020 SANDRP5 Comments

The illegal, excessive sand mining activities have been impacting river ecosystem and riparian communities adversely. Scores of villagers, young kids, reporters, activists and government officials are being attacked and killed every year for objecting to or due to unlawful and unsustainable excavation of River sand. The brazen mining is also leading to fatal road accidents which is again resulting in grievous injuries or even deaths.

The situation has only deteriorated despite several protests by locals and numbers of court orders reprimanding the central and the state governments. Political parties, politicians are directly or indirectly linked to many of these activities.

SANDRP in its 2018 overview, could compile 28 human fatalities due to illegal sand mining operations. However that was only based on the news reports that came to our notice, the actual death toll would be much higher. SANDRP this time has prepared a more detailed account of violent incidents that have taken place since January 2019 so far causing human death and injuries. The state and zone wise brief summary of these incidents is given here and a bit more detailed report is uploaded separately.

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River Stories, Walking Across India – Part III

November 10, 2020November 10, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

Guest Blog by Siddharth Agarwal

In the years 2018 and 2019, I spent months walking East across India with Paul Salopek on the Out of Eden Walk (For details, see: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/#section-0). His trail started in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia in East Africa, roughly following the path of the early human migration out of Africa and across the globe.

The India trail of the Out of Eden Walk started from the India-Pakistan border at Wagah, Punjab. It then moved East through the Indus Basin, followed by the basins of West flowing rivers like Luni, then a large chunk through the southern Gangetic plains in Central India before crossing over to the Brahmaputra basin close to Siliguri in West Bengal. The crossover to Myanmar happened at Moreh in Manipur, also incidentally very close to the basin boundary of Brahmaputra and Irrawady. He entered India in March 2018, and crossed over to Myanmar in July 2019.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 9 Nov 2020: Welcome water initiatives

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

Nature in Focus features India’s 12 water heroes. This is an interesting exercise. We also add some interesting stories from this week that should possibly feature in such efforts.

Nature in Focus 12 heroes redefining the landscape of water conservation This is the final story in a series of articles launched by Astral Pipes and Nature in Focus to create awareness about the ongoing water crisis and to encourage necessary action to address it. The names include Vishwanath Srikantaiah, Veena Srinivasan, Aabid Surti, Aabid Surti, Kalpana Ramesh, K.J.Joy, Rajendra Singh, Shishir Rao, Parineeta Dandekar, Ajya Mittal, Nachiket Kelkar, Aditi Mukherji. Links to interviews with each of them can be found here: https://www.natureinfocus.in/save-every-drop. Great to see that Parineeta Dandkear of SANDRP is also there! https://www.natureinfocus.in/save-every-drop/the-answer-to-india-s-water-crisis (4 Nov 2020)

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floodplains · Rivers

Please keep your tree Plantations away from River Floodplains

November 7, 2020 SANDRP1 Comment

Guest Blog by: Manoj Misra

River Floodplains are not vacant wastelands awaiting tree plantations. They are extensions of a flowing river with key roles for keeping it healthy.

‘Afforestation’ has been cited as one of the key components of the ongoing Rs 20,000 Crores ‘Namami Gange’ program launched with much fanfare by the Modi government for the rejuvenation of river Ganga. Forestry interventions for Ganga rejuvenation are reportedly underway in accordance with a Detailed Project Report (DPR) prepared by the Dehradun based Forest Research Institute (FRI)[i].

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Rivers · Sand Mining

North India Sand Mining Dialogue under IRW 2020: Local communities need to have key role in governance

November 6, 2020November 25, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

The Key message that came through from all the panelists and North India Sand mining presentation was that if we are to see any improvement in the murky state of sand mining that is a threat to everyone today, then we urgently need key role for the local communities and civil society in sand mining governance. The second loud & clear message was that the Supreme Order of 2012 on the need for environmental appraisal and clearance of sand mining leases stands violated in letter and spirit by the Union Government. These messages also provide us the way forward.

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Monsoon · Rainfall · River Basin

IMD continues callous reporting of River Wise Rainfall in Monsoon 2020

November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

This rarely gets reported in media, but IMD (India Meteorological Department) also provides river basin wise rainfall figures. Here is an overview of the river basin wise rainfall during SW Monsoon 2020 (June-Sept 2020, though the monsoon withdrew much later), like the way we have been doing for the last three years[i]. Our earlier monsoon 2020 articles provided district wise figures for rainfall in June 2020 [ii], June-July 2020 [iii], June-Aug 2020 [iv] and June Sept 2020 [v].

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 26 Oct 2020: Why Floods is not big issue in Bihar elections?

October 26, 2020October 26, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

Or may be it is a major issue at a number of places. Like in Kishanganj district along Mahananda river in North East Bihar, as the report here mentions. We hope it is. Since floods and how they are managed affect so fundamentally and in so many different ways so many people, it should be an election issue. Particularly when the incumbent Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is fighting to be voted in after being the Chief Minister of the state for 15 years since Nov 2005 (except brief ten month period in 2014-15).

15 years is long enough time to have been able to make at least some dent in flood management. On ground, the situation seems to have only gone worse. It was in this 15 year period that the unprecedented Kosi floods happened after the Kusaha breach in 2008. But the word unprecedented has been used for several more floods in these 15 years, including by Nitish Kumar. He also raised a number of pertinent issues in this period, including impact of Farakka barrage on Bihar floods, need for its decommissioning, Bihar’s right to get Ganga water from the headwaters in Uttarakhand [currently it gets none except during monsoon]. He is currently silent on these issues, but voters and media do not have to be silent.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 19 Oct 2020: India Rivers Week 2020: IS SAND MINING KILLING OUR RIVERS?

October 19, 2020 SANDRPLeave a comment

India Rivers Week (IRW) Organising Committee is excited to announce that the theme of the forthcoming annual event IRW 2020 will be: “Is Sand Mining Killing our Rivers?”. As part of IRW-2020, India Rivers Forum is organizing a series of Dialogues (digitally). This includes four regional dialogues focusing on North (Oct 31), South (Nov 7), West (Nov 12) and East (including North East: Nov 21)) India, and the final one (Nov 28) focusing on Sand Mining as a National issue.

Sand mining or mining of River Bed Material (RBM, including sand, gravel, boulders) has a huge impact on Rivers, in multiple ways: physical, ecological, livelihood impacts among others. While sand is also sourced from sources other than rivers, IRW 2020 will focus on sand sourced directly or indirectly from rivers. Sand is by definition, a key ingredient of the rivers. It provides habitat for multiple species of the biodiversity in the river. It provides both sub surface storage space and a mechanism to recharge the groundwater. The sand, along with silt, clay, pebbles and boulders are part of the river and are supposed to reach the deltas and provide a key existential medium in floodplain and deltas. To achieve that, sustaining river connectivities is very important.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP NB 12 Oct 2020: Why is India’s flood forecasting system ineffective?

October 12, 2020October 12, 2020 SANDRP1 Comment

This scholarly article shows why India’s flood forecasting system is ineffective. It is not location specific, provides too short a time, it does not provide the intensity of flooding, it is not comprehensive, there is no independent assessment. As far as dams are concerned, its performance is worst, and is unable to either expose wrong dam operations or take action against such operations. Its inflow forecasts are most of the time non existent. It makes numerous errors, but fails to correct them for long time. Its website is slow, sometimes totally non functional. It keeps changing the monitoring sites, their HFLs and provides neither consistency nor reasoning for many of its actions. In the middle of the monsoon it decided to curtail the hydrographs and information display system. Read on.

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