Yamuna Manthan May 2026: Ken-Betwa Linking Needs Urgent Reassessment

May 16, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Featue Image: Protesters express anger by staging symbolic hangings during the protest during April 5 to 16, 2026. Photo: Amit Bhatnagar/DTE)

Fresh protests over the past month by tribal communities affected by the Ken-Betwa River Linking Project have again raised serious concerns about its environmental impact and social costs. The project is going ahead despite questions over its hydrological assessment and environmental, forest and wildlife clearances. Moreover, the govt has not even explored the available cost effective and better alternatives.

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Environmental Flow · Floodplain · Floods · Urban Rivers · Yamuna River

Yamuna Manthan 0426: Will Govts Ensure Survival of Chambal River Sanctuary?

April 9, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Index map of Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal River Interlinking Project. Souce: NWDA)

Two critical developments over the past month have once again highlighted the scale of threats undermining the ecological integrity of the Chambal, the largest tributary of the Yamuna. The rich aquatic life in the Chambal Sanctuary has already been adversely affected by the gradual decline in river flows and unabated illegal sand mining.

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Yamuna River

Yamuna Manthan 100425: Blasting at Lakhwar Dam Shaking Hills, Damaging River

April 10, 2025April 11, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Feature Image: Screen grab of social media video shows scale of impact of heavy blasting work at Lakhwar dam on 07 April 2025)

A viral social media video media shows the frightened impact of a huge scale blasting work done for building the main structure of controversial Lakhawar dam on Yamuna river in Dehradun district, Uttarakhand. As per the locals, the blast took place in the morning hours of April 07, 2025, and caused shaking of hills to a large extent apart from blocking the flowing course of river with enormous debris for several hours forcing the project authority to employ heavy machines to clear the blockage.

The social media post shared with the video mentioned that the heavy blast scared the birds in the area and questioned how the company was allowed to destroy the entire hill environment. The heavy blast has indeed created havoc for the aquatic life in the river and downstream projects.

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Yamuna River

Yamuna Manthan 050225: River Needs Attention beyond Politics & Elections

February 5, 2025February 5, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Yamuna river downstream Okhla barrage in Delhi on Jan 29, 2025. Bhim Singh Rawat/SANDRP)

Political blame games surrounding the Delhi assembly election have brought Yamuna in focus for about past one month. Disappointingly, the central and all state govts in basin are responsible for continual degradation of river and none of the parties have offered practical solutions to improve the condition of the river in the national capital.

It’s a fact that the pollution from Haryana drains, namely Dhanaura Escape in Karnal, Drain No 2 in Panipat and Drain No. 6 and 8 in Sonipat have been bringing untreated effluents in increasing amounts in the river upstream of Delhi, ultimately severely crippling the Wazirabad barrage based potable water supply in the city. In addition to diversion of river waters for industrial, irrigational and potable demands from Hathni Kund Barrage, increasing unsustainable mechanized mining for about past eight years have been ruining lean season flows in the river in upper segment. The concerned central govt departments and Haryana government are required to address these issues effectively as part of a solution to improve the health of river in Delhi.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 111124: URBAN RIVERS in focus this week

November 11, 2024February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: A man bathing with toxic foam in polluted Yamuna in Delhi. Image is taken by Anindya Chattopadhyay @ANINDYAtimes Deputy Photo Editor,The Times Of India, Delhi and shared on X by Somreet Bhattacharya @Somreetb on Nov. 06, 2024)

This week there is some interesting news about a number of Urban rivers including Pune Rivers, Musi (Hyderabad), Chennai Rivers, Budha Dariya (Ludhiana), Gomti (Lucknow). All the news underlines some serious existential issues for Urban Rivers and raising of voices about it by local communities, governments or legal authorities.

In fact, this is part of a trend that is going on for some years. This sounds like a positive development. But unfortunately, it is not. In fact, this is sign of deteriorating condition of Urban Rivers and increasing Urban footprint on our rivers, going far beyond the boundaries of the cities. Closer examination shows that in spite of some efforts from environmental groups, local communities, some elements in the governments and the courts, the condition of our Urban Rivers is getting worse, much worse than the state of our rivers in general. More worryingly, there are almost no success stories, except some temporary respites at some places.

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Yamuna River

Yamuna SW Monsoon 2024: Upper Segment Misses Flood

October 2, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Yamuna river at Mawi site in Kairana, UP in Sept. 2024)

After remarkable deluge in 2023, the upper segment of Yamuna river has seen no significant flood spell all through the just concluded southwest monsoon 2024. This is unusual as the river generally witnesses at least a couple of low or medium flood spells in this segment every year.

However, this year the discharges from Hathnikund Barrage (HKB) in Haryana did not cross 1 lakh cusec figure even a single time. The peak discharge from the barrage was 87,017 cusecs at 06:00 hour on 26.09.2024.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 170624: Sardar Sarovar Power House to operate to reduce Dam Water level in anticipation of surplus rains: Welcome, but…

June 17, 2024February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Sardar Sarovar Dam. Image Source: The Economic Times, Sept. 2022)

The news this week that SSNNL has decided to operate the 1200 MW River Bed Power House and the 250 MW Canal Head Power house to reduce the water level in Dam from 122.28 meters on June 14 to around 115 m before the monsoon inflows start, in anticipation of the above average rainfall anticipated during SW Monsoon 2024 is welcome. One hopes this is sign of SSNNL, Gujarat Government and the Narmada Control Authority have learnt some lessons after the avoidable flood disasters brought by SSP in 2023 and earlier in 2019 and 2020, as revealed by SANDRP’s analysis in each of these years.

One hopes this is not just one-off ad-hoc decisions, but part of a systemic change. This will require an integrated basin level reservoir operation policy including all the major dams of the Narmada Valley and put it out in public domain along with clearly defined Standard Operating Procedure, and names of the responsible officials for each of such major dam in the basin. The Central Water Commission will also need to be held accountable for its flood forecasting including the 7-day advance forecasts.

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Yamuna River

Yamuna Manthan 050624: Time to review UYRB to address Delhi water crisis & save river

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: River Yamuna at Panipat on June 05, 2024. Photo by Rakesh Gautam)

In the wake of water crisis in Delhi, the Supreme Court on June 3, 2024 has directed Upper Yamuna River Board (UYRB) to convene urgent meeting on June 5, 2024 and submit status report in the court by June 6, 2024. The direction came following Delhi government claim that the state of Himachal Pradesh is ready to share surplus water with it and for that it required cooperation from Haryana government. The outcome would hopefully be known by the evening on June 5 2024.

Given the prevailing political equations among the basin states, there is uncertainty whether the board would be able to effectively resolve the issue. The UYRB suffers from some flaws in formation and functioning. The board is working in an opaque manner. Presently its website is inaccessible and meeting minutes are not in public domain. It is also reportedly crippled by shortage of staff as against originally sanctioned post of 58, it is currently functioning with just 5 officials.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2023: Untreated Effluents with Non-existent Regulation Killing Inland Fish En-Masse

November 21, 2023November 22, 2023 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Fish in large number killed in Krishna river in Sangli in March 2023 due to untreated industrial effluents discharge. Image Source: ToI)

On occasion of World Fisheries Day 2023, incidents of mass fish death in rivers and water bodies in India during past one year are compiled here. The report highlights how untreated effluents from industrial and domestic sources with non-existent regulation have been primarily responsible for most of the en masse fish kill incidents across the country. In the first part of the series, we have covered the positive developments related to fish, fisherfolks and fisheries. And in the second part, we have covered the ongoing resistance and struggles of Indian fishers against developmental projects endangering their survival and livelihoods.

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DRP News Bulletin

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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