DRP 310325: Does Mumbai need Gargai Dam?

March 31, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, brushing aside the concerns of forest officials, opposition, environment and available options this week has asked the officials to fast track the Forest and other clearances for the controversial Gargai dam for additional supply of water to Mumbai. This is shocking on several counts.

Our study earlier showed that Mumbai does not need any additional dam including Gargai if it utilizes available local resources including rainfall, reuse of treated sewage, desalinization, demand side management, groundwater recharge, among other cost effective and less destructive options. The Chief Minister of his government has not bothered to respond to these concerns or options. In fact, when our study was published, even government officials in Mumbai had supported our conclusions.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 240325: Will the encroachments in Anasagar lake in Ajmer be removed?

March 24, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

Over the last about 4 years, very interesting events are playing out in India’s judiciary regarding the encroachments in Anasagar lake in Ajmer, Rajasthan.

The first order from the National Green Tribunal came to remove the encroachments from Anasagar lake in Dec 2021, reiterated in Aug 2023 as the encroachments were in violation of the environmental regulations and Wetland Rules of 2017. Apparently, the state government with investment of Rs 12 Cr was the biggest encroacher and the investment in the encroached land continued even while NGT order was awaiting implementation.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 170325: Can we work for more Kham Rivers and Less Sabarmati Rivers?

March 17, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

This week’s DRP News Bulletin brings two encouraging reports about revival of Kham River in Sambhajinagar district in Maharashtra. The Bulletin also brings report of Gujarat Human Rights Commission sending notice to the state and city government to uphold the environment rights of citizens in Vadodara. There is also here the news of signing of MOU for beginning of 4 km water taxi along Yamuna in Delhi upstream of Wazirabad barrage, of course without any environment or social impact assessment, any environmental clearance, any public consultation process, with blind faith in Sabarmati River Front Development model.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 100325: “Good Floods Reduce the Risk of Bad Floods”

March 10, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: An aerial view of the flooded collectorate ghat at the bank of Ganga river in Patna. PTI Photo/Source: The Asian Age)

This remarkable report this week, quoting the work of Gilbert F White, also considered “father of floodplain management” provide a number of lessons in flood management. These include: – “Floods are ‘acts of God’, flood losses are largely acts of man” (By ‘acts of God,’ he meant that floods are perfectly natural events);

– “Yes, floods will happen. Whether or not those floods are good floods or bad floods, whether or not they cause damage is largely up to us”;

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 030325: Supreme Court asks: How a city can become smart without protecting the water bodies, wetlands

March 3, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

In a welcome development, the Supreme Court of India has asked, in the context of Ajmer City in Rajasthan, how can a city become smart without protecting the water bodies/ wetlands? How cities will become smarter by encroachments on the water bodies and wetlands? The Supreme Court bench threatened the Rajasthan government of contempt of court for non-compliance of order dated Dec 1 2023 as also the order of National Green Tribunal on Dec 13 2021.

The Supreme Court here has hit the nail and raised a very fundamental question that is relevant to all the cities across India as they are all guilty of allowing encroachments and destruction of local water bodies in their respective areas. This is a suicidal step as it has adverse impact on the cities in multiple ways and yet, most cities consider this smart and in fact get away with it. There is also no National Urban Water Policy guiding the cities solve the puzzle of multiple issues handled by multiple departments, including some by the local, state and central governments. This self-created mess in the cities comes handy for the various vested interests in encroaching more water bodies. The judiciary, so far has also not been effective in addressing this issue with any effectiveness.

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Dams · DRP News Bulletin

DRP 240225: Unanswered questions on Ken Betwa Project

February 24, 2025February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

At a well-attended meeting at India International Centre in Delhi on Feb 20 2025, organised by VIDHI Centre for Legal Policy, a panel of speakers including Shri Shashi Shekhar (former secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources) and Shri Jasbir Singh Chauhan (former Principle Chief Conservator of Forests, Madhya Pradesh) and Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP, a number of fundamental questions were raised about the controversial Ken Betwa River Link Project. Unfortunately, no clear answers are forth coming from the authorities.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 120824: Chalakudy community demand Prudent Dam Management Plan

August 12, 2024February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Water flows through the gates of the Peringalkuthu dam on Chalakudy river after a sluice was opened following heavy rain in Thrissur on Aug. 04, 2022. Photo Credit: PTI/The Hindu)

One of the heartening development this week is from Kerala, where Chalakudy river community held a satyagraha to demand proper integrated dam management plan in the Chalakudy River basin to minimize flood risks. It is rather rare that communities come out for such a demand. It was also great to see that the satyagraha was supported by Chalakudy Puzha Samrakshan Samiti, Chalakudy municipal chairman and also environmentalists.

The satyagraha in fact had specific demand for each of the dams included in the Paramibikulam Aliyar Project, including in Kerala and upstream Tamil Nadu. We hope the Kerala government positively responds to these demands at the earliest.

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Dams, Rivers & People

DRP 110324: Bangalore reminds us: Ignore groundwater at your own peril

March 11, 2024February 28, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: People stand in a queue with water cans to get drinking water at Jnana Jyothi Nagar, in Bengaluru. Image Source: PTI/Live Mint, 10 March 2024)

One central lesson of the ongoing Bangalore water crisis is essentially that ignore groundwater sustainability at your own peril. The surface water availability in Bangalore has not decreased, it is the groundwater depletion that is leading to crisis. There is of course the expansion of the city both horizontally and vertically that is increasing demands, but simple arithmetic tells us that if groundwater levels are sustained, it can take care of these increased demands.

The Groundwater sustainability includes sustaining the groundwater recharge and ensuring that extraction does not go past the recharge. Sustaining the groundwater recharge means first understanding the groundwater recharge mechanisms, zones and protecting them. BDA has been sitting for four years on desilting of two lakes: Bellandur and Varthur, which has caused huge impact on groundwater depletion. It also means increasing the groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting (Bangalore’s failure here is apparent from the fact that government is collecting crores of rupees as fines from those not following the mandatory rainwater harvesting requirements), groundwater recharge wells and diverting tertiary treated sewage, available in Bangalore of upto 300 Million Liters per Day, to lakes and other such recharge zones.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 050224: IMD needs to improve forecasting and sharing, but doing the opposite?

February 5, 2024February 28, 2026 SANDRP4 Comments

(Feature Image: Climate change catoon by Jug Suraiya & Partho Sengupta. ToI, 23 June 2018)

The decision of the IMD to shut down 199 of its district agromet units across India is disturbing on a number of counts. In the era of climate change when the key parameters are undergoing such rapid change, there is need for increasing monitoring and sharing of climate information by the IMD and need to in fact decentralize the whole effort. But this decision of IMD is going against this basic requirement.

In fact, the IMD has become a sort of holy cow, while in reality its performance in monitoring, forecasting and sharing information in time is far from satisfactory. This is increasingly evident every year when IMD fails to provide not only accurate, actionable, rainfall forecasts sufficiently in advance to help reduce the flood disasters and also take timely decisions on reservoir operations, IMD also fails to provide even timely information about the actual rainfall on ground and how that rainfall is going to get converted to inflows in rivers and reservoirs. Similarly, the district agromet units can provide farmer level and decentralized accurate rainfall monitoring and forecasting information that can help farmers take timely decisions.

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DRP News Bulletin

DRP 231023: Need to be a little serious about Dam Safety, Flood Forecasting, Use of Early Warnings

October 23, 2023February 27, 2026 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Landslide warning board at Lakhwar dam site on Yamuna river. SANDRP, June 2015)

India need to relook the Dam Safety Act Experts say the Sikkim incident exemplifies blind spots in both legislation and implementation. The DSA does not promote risk-based decision-making and fails to incentivise transparency. Himanshu Thakkar, an environmental activist and coordinator of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, says that the frequency and scale of such disasters reveal a pattern of neglect: “It keeps happening regularly, people face disastrous consequences and we call these ‘natural disasters’. But there’s nothing natural about them.”

A robust DSA should allow different stakeholders to access information easily, but India’s framework falls short. “Dam safety is a public purpose function. Everything about dam safety, functions of all the institutions and committees and authorities, their reports, decisions minutes and agendas, everything should be promptly available to the public,” says Mr. Thakkar. “But nothing is in the public domain.” He adds that transparency is further obstructed when national and State bodies comprise government employees and engineers who worked on these projects, compromising objective decision making and lacking “people with a proven track record of taking independent decisions.”

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