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.

(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”;

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.