A new UN report released on January 21, 2021 UN has warned the major big dam owning counties about the aging population of fast silting up dams in changing climate and urgent need to start working on decommissioning of uneconomical large dams. Among the few countries that UN has warned includes India with its third largest number of big dams. The added problem in India is the ill maintained and ill operated large dams that UN report did not look into. Indian dams are sanctioned based on highly under estimated siltation rates, there is practically no transparency and accountability in operation of Indian dams and dam almost every year get away with creating avoidable flood disasters. This latest problem is not just related to old dams, but even the newest celebrated ones like the Sardar Sarovar Dam as happened in Gujarat in late August-early Sept 2020. No legal regime exists in India for dam safety, either structural safety or operational safety. And in changing climate, with increasing frequency of higher intensity rainfall events, such risks are already increasing multi-fold.
Continue reading “DRP NB 25 Jan. 2021: UN warns about aging Dams & Floods in changing climate”Tag: Mahanadi
DRP Bulletin 21 Dec 2020: Morand Ganjal Dam opposed in Narmada Valley
Tribals of large number of villages from Seoni Malwa Tehsil of Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh have been strongly opposing the Morand Ganjal dam for several years now, as they again came out in large numbers this week on Dec 17, 2020, also remembering their rally exactly a year ago on Dec 17, 2019. They has simple demand: plz first provide all the information about the project in Narmada Valley and get approval of all the involved villages as required under the law. But the arrogant administration has not even responded to basic demand of all the relevant information.
Under the Rs 2813 Cr project, dams are to be built on Morand river near Morghat village of Seoni Malwa tehsil and on Ganjal river near Jawardha village of Rahatgaon tehsil-Harda district with the objective of irrigating 4,617 ha of land in 28 villages of Hoshangabad, 17,678 ha in 62 villages of Harsud tehsil-district Khandwa, and 29,910 ha in 121 villages of Harda, Khirkiya, Sirali and Rahatgaon tehsils of Harda district. The project was approved in 2017. Some 23 villages and over 3000 ha of land is facing submergence, affecting Korku tribals in Hoshangabad, Harda and Betul districts, but there is no rehabilitation plan in place as per the Narmada Valley R&R policies.
Dams are no longer delivering promised benefits and the age of building dams is over. But the political economy of massive funds spent on a major project keeps driving the politicians and officials to keep pushing more projects. The least one can expect from the government is to provide all the relevant information to the affected people in manner and language they can understand, have public consultation and approval in each affected village in front of an independent panel. Without such due process pushing such dams are bound to raise more conflicts, confrontations and opposition.
Continue reading “DRP Bulletin 21 Dec 2020: Morand Ganjal Dam opposed in Narmada Valley”
Riverbed mining 2020: East & North East India
This compilation covers the Riverbed mining issue in remaining states of East and North East India in the past eighteen months. There were not enough media reports on the issue of sand mining in remaining states of East and North East India. Hence we have prepared the single compilation covering these states. We have also put some informative reports from previous years which we had not compiled earlier to highlight the problems of illegal mining.
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Khanda Dam Breach in Chhattisgarh in Sept 2020
The earthen Khanda dam in Korea district[i] in Chhattisgarh’s Mahanadi basin breached around 6.30 hrs on Wednesday, Sept 23, 2020. Local farmers alleged negligence by the Water Resources Department officials, who were informed about the dilapidated condition of the dam. The engineers even came and inspected, they said, and went away. They alleged that if they had reduced water storage and in stead opened the two canal gates, this situation may not have come.
Continue reading “Khanda Dam Breach in Chhattisgarh in Sept 2020”
DRP NB 7 Sep 2020: On Himalaya Diwas, will Supreme Court stop destruction of Himalaya by Char Dham Road?
The people and state government of Uttarakhand would be celebrating Himalayan Diwas on September 9; the Supreme Court of India would be hearing the issues related to the controversial Char Dham Road project a day before it on September 08. During the last hearing on August 31, the apex court has rescheduled the case by extending the hearing date by a week amid concerns of recurring landslides raised by the petitioners.
The ongoing adverse impacts on forests, rivers, streams, soil covers, hills and people continue to concerns scientists, geologist who are alarmed by the scale of destruction and shocked by the brazen manner the state and central governments have been marching ahead without bothering to assess the impacts or address the genuine issues being raised by all concerned.
Multiple reports have been showing that the deliberate dilution of environmental rules and violations of already weakened norms applied by none other than governments themselves to avoid scientific scrutiny and push the project through climatically and ecologically sensitive mountains is proving to be a Himalaya blunder. There is still time to pause, ponder, review the project, assess the impacts, reduce road width and prepare an action plan to restore the damages and pay heed to scientific suggestions before the blunder leads to another inevitable disaster of Kedarnath or larger scale. Hope the apex court would not fail Himalayas.
Continue reading “DRP NB 7 Sep 2020: On Himalaya Diwas, will Supreme Court stop destruction of Himalaya by Char Dham Road?”
DRP News Bulletin 11 May 2020: Jindal accepts Etalin HEP is unviable!
This must be the defining (and predictable, this was the lead story in our DRP NB of April 27, 2020, see: https://sandrp.in/2020/04/27/drp-nb-27-april-2020-for-whom-is-this-unviable-etalin-project-being-pushed/) moment in the campaign to save the Dibang Valley now from the proposed 3097 MW Etalin Hydropower Project. The CEO of Jindal Power Ltd has said in so many words that project is NOT an attractive investment, they will struggle to find buyers for the costly power and only support from government can help make the project viable. The CEO seemed to suggest that they would be happy to sell the project to NHPC or form a joint venture with NHPC to get the govt funding for the project. Again completely on predictable line. The question then is why should government spend previous public money on such an unviable project?
So the question remains the same, the one we asked on April 27, 2020: For whom is this unviable Etalin Project being pushed?
Continue reading “DRP News Bulletin 11 May 2020: Jindal accepts Etalin HEP is unviable!”
2019 All India summary of CWC flood forecasting sites
This article provides and overview of flood forecasting work of Central Water Commission (CWC) in 2019 after looking closely at each site details for the five regions of India: North East[i], East[ii], North[iii], West[iv] and South[v] India.
The table below provides an overview of number of Level Forecasting, Level Monitoring and Inflow forecasting sites as per CWC’s FF website during 2019 floods for all the states and regions of India.
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River Wise Rainfall in Monsoon 2019
Indian media never seems to report this, but IMD (India Meteorological Department) also provides river basin wise rainfall figures for South West Monsoon, also for other seasons. As in the previous years, here is an overview of the river basin wise rainfall during just concluded SW Monsoon 2019 (June-Sept 2019, though the monsoon started withdrawing only on Oct 9 and has not yet fully withdrawn from across India as I write this on Oct 15 2019), like the way we have been doing for the last three years[i]. Our earlier monsoon 2019 articles provided monsoon over view[ii], state wise rainfall figures[iii] and Marathwada specific situation[iv].
It’s not clear why Indian media does not report river basin wise rainfall figures, since that is arguably, the most appropriate way to look at the rainfall figures, since river basins are the hydrological units and the run off from the rainfall ends up in the rivers, and creates floods many times, as happened during 2019 monsoon. There could be issues of quality of the river basin wise rainfall figures, but that is true for all IMD’s rainfall figures at some level or other. Continue reading “River Wise Rainfall in Monsoon 2019”
East India: 2019 Overview of CWC Flood Forecasting Sites
Central Water Commission (CWC) is the only agency doing flood forecasting in India. CWC’s Flood Forecasting (FF) is available on its website[I]. In this article we have given an overview of CWC’s flood forecasting and monitoring sites in East India. It includes state wise list of CWC’s Level Forecast, Inflow Forecast and level monitoring sites in East India. Similar report has been published for North East India[II] and North India[III] and we hope to publish reports covering other regions of India soon. East India includes five states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Odisha and W Bengal.
Continue reading “East India: 2019 Overview of CWC Flood Forecasting Sites “
DRP News Bulletin 3 Dec. 2018: Ken Betwa Link; Push to Dilute Forest Clearance Conditions
Ken Betwa river interlinking project is back to drawing board with Union water resources ministry approaching the ministry of environment and forest to relax conditions imposed as part of forest clearance accorded in May 2017 for diversion of forest in the Panna Tiger reserve (PTR).
Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) while according Stage-I clearance to the project had recommended that the project proponent and state govt should consider equivalent non-forest area (6,017 ha) adjoining to PTR from the revenue and private land and add to the PTR as a part of core/corridor (for tiger movement) with other areas or satellite core area. According to water resources ministry, they are unable to find land adjoining to PTR.
Will the forest department buckle under pressure to dilute the forest clearance conditions? http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2018/nov/25/first-river-linking-project-coming-undone-1902890.html (25 Nov. 2018)
SANDRP 