A report this week quotes a Govt of Gujarat (GOG) insider saying that GOG is giving 16.7% of SSP (Sardar Sarovar Project) water for industries (with more in pipeline) against planned allocation of just 2% (0.2 Million Acre Feet or MAF). Similarly, against planned allocation of zero for Urban areas in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Kheda and Bharuch, most large urban areas are getting Narmada water. However, the insider says, the area irrigated by the SSP is only 33% of the targeted area, with largest water quantities going to already irrigated central Gujarat. Similarly, with the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) asked Gujarat to provide water for the SSP Downstream areas from its allocated share, but Gujarat keeps claiming it has no water for this and asks other states to provide water for the downstream areas from common pool. It seems the worst fears of the project critiques are coming true. The insider has in fact characterized this state of affairs as water anarchy in Gujarat.
Continue reading “DRP NB 030225: Water Anarchy in Gujarat in Narmada water allocation?”Tag: groundwater
World Wetlands Day 2025: More Judicial Decisions, Less Actions by Govts
(Part of a marsh land already covered by residential buildings in Asan river basin in Dehradun being filled up further in May 2024. BS Rawat/SANDRP)
In third part of annual overview, we compile top ten judicial decisions taken during 2024 by various courts regarding protection and conservation wetlands in India. The first part of the overview has covered the looming threats on Ramsar sites and the second part has highlighted the deteriorating condition wetlands in the country.
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World Wetlands Day 2025: Govts Projects, Apathy Damaging Ramsar Wetlands
(Feature Image: A road is being laid allegedly by a private realtor inside the Perumbakkam marshland. Photo Credit: TNIE, June 2023)
‘Protecting Wetlands for Our Common Future’ is the theme for World Wetlands Day 2025. Wetlands are ecosystems, in which water is the primary factor controlling the environment and the associated plant and animal life.
Indian government seems focusing more on increasing Ramsar wetlands number than ensuring the protection and conservation the existing Ramsar sites in country. Over the past one decade the numbers of Ramsar wetlands in India have sharply gone up from 26 in 2014 to 89 as of January 2025. Amid the thrust to increase the number, several existing or even recently declared Ramsar wetlands across the country have been facing multiple threats mainly due to governmental projects and constant negligence from the concerned authorities as can be seen from the reports from 2024 in this annual overview.
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Groundwater 2024: Increasing Contamination: Tip of a Toxic-berg?
(Feature Image: Drain No 6 in Kundli, Sonipat filled with industrial effluents. BS Rawat/ SANDRP/ May 2023)
This annual overview compiles the top ten reports showing the rising contamination of groundwater resources in India during 2024. It includes some shocking facts from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Ladakh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and W Bengal, in addition to reports from CGWB (Central Ground Water Board) a Parliamentary Committee. The contaminants reported in groundwater include nitrates, fluorides, arsenic, uranium, heavy metals (Chromium, cadmium, nickel, manganese, selenium, among others), Iron, salinity, among others. Since most people consume groundwater assuming it to be safe, what is reported here is only a tip of the proverbial toxic-berg. The easiest way forward, besides more regular monitoring and improved governance is rainwater harvesting on war footing. However, the government, busy pushing more big dams and interlinking projects, has little real priority for that.
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Groundwater 2024: Increasing Impacts of Climate Change
Several studies and reports published during 2024 have underlined the rising adverse impacts of changing climate on groundwater resources in India and globally in multiple ways which will continue to accelerate in future. While the groundwater greatly contributes to river baseflows during lean period, its role in flooding is miniscule comparatively with surface flows in Peninsular India. In North India the drying northwest monsoon and warmer winters have been found driving groundwater depletion by raising demand for irrigation water.
The groundwater is getting warmer, also impacting subterranean aquatic ecosystems. Besides, the rising temperatures are causing more evaporation losses and leading to pumping of more groundwater to compensate for the losses. The extreme rainfall events might speed up fertilizers seeping into groundwater table contaminating it. Similarly, the rising sea level is found fueling erosion in coastal areas and facilitating seawater intrusion of the coastal aquifers. At the same time the decline in low and medium intensity rainfall and warmer weather patterns are reducing groundwater recharge, increasing seawater ingress.
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DRP NB 270125: India’s non-functional Sewage Treatment Plants
(Feature Image: 10 MLD Kundli CETP in Sonipat. BS Rawat/SANDRP/May 2023)
A detailed report in this week’s DRP News Bulletin below shows how India’s Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), Govt’s main weapon against pollution of rivers in Urban areas, have been a failure for decades. It is pertinent to note that this is the golden jubilee year of Water Pollution Control Act of 1974, that led to the formation of Central, state Pollution Control Boards, and the whole water pollution control bureaucracy, institutions and legal architecture. There should be little doubt that whole architecture has abysmally failed in achieving basic objective for which it was created, including ensuring proper treatment of urban sewage.
India has spent thousands of crores of rupees on these STPs, mostly, mega, centralized projects. But there has been little effort to address governance of the STPs, to ensure that they function as required and provide the results that they have been set up for. Whether they function or not, qualitatively or quantitatively, year after year and decades after decades, there are no consequences! In fact, if treated properly, sewage can become a asset rather than nuisance that it now is. The Judiciary too, right up to the apex court, have badly failed in achieving any improvement in this eminently justiciable issue.
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DRP NB 200125: Whither Env Clearance Rejection rate from Expert Appraisal Committee or MoEF?
A detailed review of functioning of Union Ministry of Environment and Forests’ (MoEF) Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on River Valley Projects (RVP) for 2024 by SANDRP shows that the committee or for that matter MoEF has almost non-existent rejection rate. Even when a project is not cleared, when it applies again, it gets clearance, whether the application if for stage I (Terms of Reference) or Stage II (Environment Clearance- EC) clearance. Even in some cases like Pump Storage Projects (PSP) in Western Ghats or the Hydropower projects in disaster prone Himalayas, including the disaster-stricken projects like the 1200 MW Teesta III projects in Sikkim, the scrutiny including field visits by the EAC Sub committees is minimal, not worthy calling even scrutiny.
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DRP NB 130125: Will Judiciary take these matters to logical conclusion?
There are at least four cases in this past week where the judiciary has used strong words or taken up crucial issues in water, dams, hydropower projects, wetlands and riverbed mining related issues. In the case related to the safety of Mullaperiyar dam on Kerala-TN border, the Supreme Court has prodded the Centre to wake up from the slumber to ensure that National Dam Safety Authority quickly forms a panel to examine the project. This case has wide ranging repercussions not only about this project, but also functioning of NDSA and other bodies under the Dam Safety Act 2021. Indeed, there is huge question mark as to what extent NDSA and DSA has made our dams any safer.
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DRP NB 060125: Concerns about & Contradictions in CGWB’s Reports
The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) released two important reports last week. While the Annual Ground Water Quality Report 2024 reveals rise in nitrate fluoride, arsenic and uranium contimination of groundwater resource in India, the Dynamic Groundwater Resource Assessment Report 2024 claims substantial rise in annual groundwater recharge and decline in extraction of the resource.
As per the first report, the number of districts affected by high nitrate levels in groundwater has gone up to 440 (near 56% of all 779 districts in country) from 359 found in 2017 assessment which means in 7 years 81 more districts have been found having excessive nitrate levels in groundwater. This should concern us from a number of points of view.
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Yamuna Manthan 020125: River Dying by Design or Default?
(Feature Image: Instream mechanized mining going on in Yamuna river at Gumthala Rao near Karnal-Yamuna Nagar border in Haryana in Oct. 2024. Source: Yamauna Nadi Mitra Mandli)
This twelfth edition of monthly Yamuna updates and the first one of the new year 2025, rounds up the critical issues impacting the river eco-system during the past year. The updates of the past one month only hint towards the bleak future the river is heading to. Without addressing the adverse effects and exploring cost effective alternatives, foundation stones of two massive river interlinking projects namely Ken-Betwa and Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal have been laid. The work of unjustifiable Renuka and Lakhwar dams in climatically sensitive and geologically fragile region of Himalaya is going on.
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SANDRP 