2025: Dam Induced Flood Incidents in India

December 5, 2025December 10, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Locals assist in moving flood affected people to a safer place as floodwater enters villages in Ajnala, near Amritsar. Source)

India has witnessed several incidents of dam induced floods during south west monsoon 2025. The most remarkable and devastating episode unfolded in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh states in August 2025 largely due to mismanagement of Bhakra, Pong and Ranjit Sagar dams by BBMB. While negligence of BBMB has invited FIRs in Himachal Pradesh, warnings by Punjab govt and petition in NGT, there is no report in public domain suggesting the authority taking any credible action to make its dam operation scientific and accountable after the disaster.

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WFD 2025: Mass Fish Death in Indian Rivers

November 22, 2025November 24, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Thousands of fish found dead in Mula-Mutha river near Naik Bet, a river island at Bund Garden in last week of Dec. 2024. Source)

Indian rivers continue to witness mass fish death incidents all through the year 2025. Most of these incidents we were able to track have occurred in urban rivers across the country including Mula-Mutha in Pune, Yamuna in Delhi, Gomti in Lucknow and Varuna in Varanasi. Mass fish mortality cases have also happened in streams passing through Nalagarh & Pithampur industrial areas of Himachal Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh. These streams are part of Sutlej-Ghaggar-Yamuna-Chambal river basins & have been facing large scale fish death for years.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Struggle & Resistance of Fisherfolks in India

November 21, 2025November 22, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Boats of small fishers in Hooghly river in Haldia. Credit: Rahul Singh/ Mongabay India)

The theme for World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, “We have not caught anything, but at your word I will let down the nets” aptly resembles the plight of lakhs of fisherfolks both inland and coastal in India whose livelihoods have apparently been undermined by various development projects. However, amid growing uncertainties they keep up the resistance against the destructive projects to reclaim their rights as the top ten stories of past one year compiled here signifies. This is the fifth part of our annual overview on the subject and in first four parts we have highlighted the positive developments on fisheries, impact of dams on fish diversity and habitats, important studies and new fish species discovered in India during past one year.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: New Freshwater Fish Discoveries from India

November 21, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: The new species of cyprinid from the Brahmaputra River. Source)

Amid rising threats, the researchers continue to discover new freshwater fish species in India mostly from North East and Western Ghats as shows this overview, prepared on the occasion of World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025. This is fourth overview and we have covered positive developments, impact of dams, important studies on the subject taking place during the past one year in first, second and third parts of the series.

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Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Important Studies, Reports on Freshwater Fish Species, Habitats

November 21, 2025November 23, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Marking World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, we present some of important studies and reports highlighting the growing threats over freshwater fish species in India and across the globe. The multi-taxon global freshwater fauna assessment for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species published this year is among most concerning report revealing looming extinction threats over 24% of freshwater fauna worldwide. This includes the hump-backed mahseer, subterranean snakehead and peninsular hill trout found in rivers and waterbodies of Western Ghats.

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Dams, Rivers & People · Fish, Fisheries, Fisherfolk

WFD 2025: Impacts of Dams on Inland Fish, Fisherfolks

November 20, 2025November 20, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

On the Occasion of World Fisheries Day (WFD) 2025, SANDRP shares the top ten reports underlining the growing impacts of river obstruction projects on freshwater fish species and dependent fisherfolks in India. Indeed, damming free flowing rivers has become the single biggest reason behind growing extinction rate of aquatic life by severely disrupting their migration routes. The iconic hilsa and mahaseer fish in Ganga and Narmada have declined sharply due to construction of Farakka and Sardar Sarovar dams respectively, among others.

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Floods · Monsoon · Yamuna River

2025 South West Monsoon in Upper Yamuna Basin

November 12, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

(Feature Image: Screenshot of IMD River basin wise cumulative rainfall map dated 30.09.2025 showing the Yamuna basin)

This report presents monthly rainfall figures during South West (SW) monsoon season 2025 for 16 districts located in 4 states of Himachal Pradesh (3 districts), Uttarakhand (3 districts), Haryana (5 districts), Uttar Pradesh (5 districts) which forms parts of the upper Yamuna basin. The India Meteorological Département (IMD) has divided Delhi in 10 divisions which entirely comes in upper Yamuna basin and the report has rainfall figures for entire Delhi area.

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CWC - Central Water Commission · Floods · Highest Flood Level

India’s Rivers in Extreme Floods in Oct 2025

November 1, 2025November 1, 2025 SANDRP1 Comment

In Oct. 2025, we could find at least 06 flood monitoring sites of Central Water Commission (CWC), where rivers have crossed their Highest Flood Levels (HFL) after the end of South West Monsoon season 2025 on Sept 30 2025. Of the 6 sites, 2 each are in Brahmaputra basin in W Bengal and Ganga basin in Bihar. 1 site Anantharam on Musi river in Telangana is part of Krishna basin and 1 site Marella on Gundlakamma river in Andhra Pradesh is part of East Flowing Rivers between Mahandi and Pennar basin.

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Urban Water Sector

Open Letter Regarding Water Polluting Activities Around WYC in Bawana, Delhi

October 26, 2025October 26, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

Respected Sirs, Oct 26, 2025

1. Shri Pravesh Sahib Singh,

Hon’ble Water Minister,

Delhi Government.

pss-pwd.minister@delhi.gov.in; dspwddelhi@gmail.com

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Yamuna River

केवल सफाई नहीं, चाहिए समग्र यमुना नदी तंत्र संरक्षण नीति

October 24, 2025October 24, 2025 SANDRPLeave a comment

दिल्ली चुनाव के दौरान यमुना नदी प्रदूषण एक अहम मुद्दा बना। चुनाव जीतने के बाद नई सरकार निरंतर यमुना सफाई को लेकर कई घोषणाएं और योजनाओं पर बात कर रही है। स्वयं प्रधानमंत्री और उसके बाद केंद्रीय गृहमंत्री, जल संसाधन मंत्री इसके लिए बड़ी बैठक कर चुके हैं। इन सबमें हरियाणा, दिल्ली और उत्तर प्रदेश सरकार द्वारा मिलकर कार्य करने की आवश्यकता सबसे सराहनीय पक्ष रहा है। सरकार द्वारा एसटीपी क्षमता विकास, औद्योगिक प्रदूषण रोकथाम, जल संचयन बढ़ाने और जल स्रोतों को बचाने की बातें भी कही जा रही है। पर ये सब बातें तो पिछली सरकारों द्वारा पहले भी कही जा चुकी हैं और बातों से आगे ठोस नीति और सफल निष्पदान कार्ययोजना की तरफ नहीं बढ़ पा रही है। इन सबके बीच यमुना नदी स्वास्थ्य में गिरावट जारी है।

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