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.
Continue reading “DRP 170325: Can we work for more Kham Rivers and Less Sabarmati Rivers?”Tag: Krishna
DRP 100325: “Good Floods Reduce the Risk of Bad Floods”
(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 030325: Supreme Court asks: How a city can become smart without protecting the water bodies, wetlands
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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DRP 240225: Unanswered questions on Ken Betwa Project
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 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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EAC & FAC Decisions on Dams, Hydro, Irrigation Projects in 2024
This annual overview tracks the minutes of meetings held by Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for River Valley and Hydropower Projects between 20 December 2023 and 31 December 2024 for consideration of Dams, Hydroelectric Power (HEP), Pumped Storage Hydro Projects (PSP) and Irrigation related proposals seeking Terms of Reference (TOR) and Environment Clearance (EC) approvals. The analysis also covers various water projects related proposals considered by the Forest Appraisal Committee (FAC) between 15 December 2023 and 26 December 2024 for Forest Clearances (FC).
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2024: Dam Induced Floods in Urban India
(Feature Image: A drone visual of the flood-affected areas of Vijayawada city on Sept. 6, 2024. Credit: ANI Photo/Source: Rediff.com)
Having covered dam induced flood incidents and embankment breach flooding events in part 1 and part 2, this third part on annual overview compiles media reports on manmade Urban flood disasters in India during the year 2024. While the cities of Pune, Nasik, Nagpur, Vadodara and Bharuch were affected by dam induced floods, the high discharges from Prakasam barrage and multiple breaches in Budameru river deluged the Vijayawada city. Interestingly, these urban flood episodes coincided with heavy rainfall events giving a reality check to dam and city managers.
In addition to failure in dam management, the deluge in Pune, Vadodara and Vijayawada city were particularly worsened by river front development projects and encroachment on river floodplains putting question marks on the urban planning and development works in these cities. Similarly, the breach in embankment of Munak canal in Delhi flooded several homes Bawana area during the monsoon season.
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SW Monsoon 2024: Rivers Crossing Highest Flood Levels
During southwest monsoon season 2024, SANDRP has tracked at least 64 flood forecast and flood monitoring sites where the respective rivers have crossed the highest flood levels (HFL). Here we present detailed analysis of these sites along with some key observations and other relevant information. SANDRP’s previous reports on the subject can be seen here: HFL breach incidents in 2018, 2019, 2020, May-Sept 2021, Oct.-Nov 2021, May-June 2022, July-October 2022, June-October 2023.
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DRP 020924: HYDRA to protect water bodies in Hyderabad – a landmark move?
(Feature Image: An analysis of satellite imaging of 54 lakes taken in 1979 and 2023, secured by the HYDRAA from the NRSA shows that 40 lakes or nearly 75 per cent of lakes have shrunk by half. (Image: Twitter/DC)
The Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Monitoring and Protection Agency, or Hydra was established under GO 99, dated July 19 2024. A task the agency has taken up in all seriousness is protection of water bodies in the Hyderabad Capital Region (it includes 4 districts). To begin with it has started demolition of buildings illegally built inside the Full Tank Area (FTL) and Buffer area of the water bodies.
In July, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy replaced the Enforcement, Vigilance and Disaster Management (EVDM) wing of the government with Hydra, a body mandated to tackle illegal encroachment on water bodies in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits and surrounding areas. Its strength was upgraded from around 800 to 2,200 and its officials came directly under the principal secretary, municipal administration and urban development or the CM himself. “Hydra will also ensure the protection of water bodies in and around Hyderabad,” former EVDM commissioner and Hydra chief A V Ranganath said during its inception.
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DRP 290424: Why is Climate Change not major election issue?
(Feature Image: Vehicles stuck in debris following a recent cloudburst at Saat Meel in Mandi, on August 20, 2023. (PTI Photo/Money Control)
World’s largest democratic exercise is now ongoing in India to elect the members of India’s Lok Sabha. Over 97 crores are eligible to vote in these elections. One of the biggest factors that is adversely affecting people across India currently is Climate Change. It is affecting almost every aspect of life and the adverse impacts are only increasing with every passing year. This is man-made disaster basically happening due to anthropogenic reasons, affecting air, water, climate, food, health, livelihoods, disasters and so on, affecting everyone. Currently, India is also a major contributor to the climate change causing green-house gas emissions, even though historically, the developed countries have contributed much more.
More importantly, the development options that the elected government choose will decide how the people will be impacted by climate change. The government has large number of options for pathways to development. Considering all this, one expected that climate change responses will be a major issue in these elections. But that is clearly not the case. BJP and Congress, two of the biggest parties fighting the elections, have mentioned climate change in their manifestos, but neither has dealt with this important issue with the detail and seriousness required. Nor are any of them making climate change a major election issue. One expects the ruling party to at least respond in greater detail and seriousness to this issue, but that is not the case.
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SANDRP 