DRP 080523: Pune citizens Oppose River Front Development Project

May 8, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature Image: On April 29, thousands of Pune citizens join Chipko Andolan against the planned cutting of over 7,000 trees for the Mula Mutha Riverfront Development (RFD) project. Image Credit: Rahul Deshmukh, Source: Pune Mirror.)

It is heartening to see thousands of Pune citizens out on the streets over the last two weeks protesting against felling of thousands of trees for the destructive Mula Mutha River Front Development Project. The project will destroy the best biodiversity habitat along the rivers in Pune, fell thousands of trees, encroach on riverbeds and floodplains, destroy bird migration corridor, and create fresh flood hazards for the city, which will further worsen in changing climate.

We hope this protests continue and intensify till the Pune Municipal Corporation and the Maharashtra government wakes up and scraps the project and instead, uses the scarce available resources for protecting and rejuvenating the water bodies and biodiversity in Pune in collaboration with the people of Pune.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 010523: Water bodies census welcome, but how reliable?

May 1, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

While the publication by the Union Jal Shakti Ministry of the first water body census of India is not only welcome but urgently required, the usefulness of the census findings will depend on the quality of the information in the report. Firstly, such a census should have been conducted in a bottom up way, starting from villages in rural areas and ward in urban areas. That way, the census findings would have not only been more reliable, but also the process would have helped create greater awareness about the water bodies and issues surrounding them.

In case of Karnataka, as the report below shows the survey by the Tank Conservation and Development Authority and Karnataka Public Land Corporation in 2021 showed the state had 40483 water bodies, whereas the Jal Shakti Ministry census of 2022 says the state has just 26994 water bodies, a huge 13489 less than the 2021 census. Clearly so many water bodies cannot disappear in a year. As some experts from Karnataka have asked, is the Jal Shakti Census a deliberate attempt to show that a much lower number of water bodies exist, allowing encroachers to go ahead to destroy water bodies not registered in the census?

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 240423: The world is moving away from Big Dams: Are we?

April 24, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Construction works going on at Polavaram Dam site. Source: The Hans Media, May 2021)

This well substantiated report from Yale School of Environment this week shows that the end of the big dam era is approaching. The well argued report from Jacques Leslie uses the reports from UN University, International Renewable Energy Agency, Oxford University, Inclusive Development International, China, among others to show how the pace of construction of dams and hydropower projects and also pace of financing such projects have hugely reduced in recent years and decades.

Even the International Hydropower Association, sensing the change, is now advocating pump storage hydro rather than conventional hydro and that too off stream version, to complement the power from solar and wind. Emerging economics with rising cost of hydropower projects and rising cost of power from such projects compared to solar, wind (onshore and offshore) are a major reason for the massively slowing pace of new hydropower projects.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 170423:Forecast of Indian SW Monsoon & definition of normal monsoon

April 17, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has on April 11, 2023 forecast that rainfall at national level in four months of June-Sept 2023 Southwest Monsoon will be 96% of Long Period Average (LPA). IMD considers Indian Monsoon rainfall as normal based on just one parameter of total rainfall in these four months at national level is between 96% and 104% of LPA, with model error of +/- 5%. This raises large number of questions as media has rightly raised post the IMD announcement.

Firstly, in a strange turn of events, on April 12, an update jointly by US weather agencies under the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), contradicted a number of assumptions of IMD the previous day, including the period when El Nino will become active and probability of it being a strong event, both of which have a strong bearing on the Indian Monsoon in an adverse way. So the first question that arises is, did the IMD not have the benefit of the observations on April 11 based on which NOAA made the forecast very next day? Or was it an attempt at providing an unjustified feel good monsoon forecast? This question arises as in the past too questions have been raised about such attempts by IMD. This question also becomes important as only a day or two before IMD’s forecast, private forecaster had predicted that monsoon rainfall is likely to be deficient and not normal.

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Wetlands

Uttarakhand 2023: Drona Sagar another Neglected Lake of Kashipur

April 11, 2023April 11, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

Like Giri taal, the Drona Sagar (29.12’24 N & 78.58’15 E) is another lake in Kashipur town succumbing to official neglect. The circular water body is spread over about 3 hectare of land and is hardly 1.5 km away from Giri taal in south east direction.

In recent past, both the lakes were fed by a distributary canal originating from Tumria dam on Phika river in Ramganga basin. Presently the canal portion between these lakes has been replaced with giant RCC hume pipes and a RCC road has been laid over it. The inlet of the canal joining Drona Sagar has also been cemented.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 100423: Abysmal track record of water pollution control in India

April 10, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Stagnant waste water pools amid residential plots in Kashipur, Uttarakhand, Bhim Singh Rawat 10 April 2023)

That India’s track record in water pollution control is abysmal is self-evident. This is particularly important to note as India prepares to mark 50 years of Water Pollution Control Act enacted in 1974, next year. It was after that act that the huge institutional architecture of central and state pollution control boards and laboratories were created with huge bureaucracy. That whole institutional architecture is more known for inefficiency and corruption than for achieving any clean rivers or cleaning other water bodies. During the existence of this act the bureaucracy that came with it, the state of our rivers and water bodies have only gone worse with every passing year.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 270323: Bleak future of Large Hydro

March 27, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRP1 Comment

(Feature Image: Anti dam graffiti on the wall of the civil secretariat building in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh in July 2022. Source: Social Media)

Large Hydropower projects have bleak future as number of reports this week suggest, including the following Video. The large hydro is not renewable, sustainable or green or people friendly. In fact, it is increasingly seen as invitation to disasters. Much better options exist. In the changing climate situation, the destruction that hydropower projects bring about becomes even more relevant when we need the Rivers, Forests, the biodiversity and less disaster prone options. Earlier our governments see this writing on the dam walls from across the world, better it will be for all concerned.

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Urban Water Sector

World Water Day 2023: Positive Urban Water Stories from India

March 22, 2023March 27, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Revived Bansilalpet stepwell in Hyderabad which has a capacity of over 20 lakh litres. Rangan Datta/Telegraph India.)

Marking World Water Day 2023; this compilation by SANDRP highlights top ten successful and worth replicable initiatives and actions being taken in Indian cities for revival of surface water sources and recharge of depleting groundwater table.

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Water Options

World Water Day 2023: Positive Water Stories from India

March 22, 2023March 27, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

This report highlights top ten positive water stories from rural India from last one year. SANDRP has been marking the World Water Day by presenting the stories of some remarkable efforts undertaken for protection, revival and management of water sources by individuals, local communities and governments.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 060323: India’s regulators blind to increasing threats in Himalayas

March 6, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRP2 Comments

This week the weekly DRP bulletin brings news of increasing threats from changing climate in inherently disaster prone Himalayas. The news come from Ladakh in the NW to Nagaland in the NE, and includes Uttarakhand among others. The news is about retreating glaciers, increasing threats of Glacial Lake Outburst floods and landslides. The news also notes that factors like indiscriminate infrastructure development and lack of drainage are worsening the disaster potential of the Himalayan states. Most importantly, implicitly more than explicitly, the news reports highlight complete inattention of the regulators to these increasing threats and risks in inherently vulnerable Himalayas while considering new infrastructure projects like Highways, Railways, Hydropower projects, Dams and urbanization and also in terms of disaster management laws and practices.

It underlines that the threats and risks in the Himalayan states is also increasing due to changing rainfall patterns due to changing climate. This trinity of inherent vulnerability, changing climate and inattention to the risks of indiscriminate infrastructure projects is clearly very very dangerous, but there is little hope for any immediate change. One clear indication is the handling of the Joshimath disaster, a clear case of how not to handle communication as Dave Petley has noted. The Prime Minister’s office is sitting on the report submitted by the investigating agencies several weeks ago. Why should this report be a secret or will we get a negotiated report?

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