Gujarat dams' capacity down by 14.31% due to siltation: NGO asks Modi to intervene

Gujarat’s 60 major dams’ capacity, which is calculated at 16,768 million cubic metres, has gone down by about 14.31 per cent as a result of the silt that has gathered in their reservoirs. Revealing this, Gujarat’s environmental NGO Paryavaran Mitra director Mahesh Pandya said, quoting official state government figures, that in the dams’ capacity has gone down by about 2,400 million cubic metres due to siltation.
Talking with media, Pandya, who made public a plea to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meant to direct Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel to come up with a concrete programme on removing silt, said, if desilting is not carried out, it would “directly impact” Gujarat’s future plans for water conservation, including the ambitious Saurashtra Narmada Avtaran Irrigation (SAUNI), meant to transfer Narmada waters to Saurashtra’s dams, which largely remain empty despite normal monsoon.
Even as praiseing Modi for his emphasis on water conservation by coming with the idea of constructing 75 new dams in as many districts of India for enhancing water conservation, Pandya said, “However desilting is badly affecting dams”, quoting a recent report, which said the Narmada dam is filled with 53 per cent of its capacity but only 39 per cent of the storage “is available in the reservoir for use.” However, he said, there is so far no authentic data on silt gathered in the Narmada dam.
According to Pandya no survey has been carried out on the present silt level in the Narmada dam. Worse, he said, official papers suggest, the silt survey of many large and medium dams of Gujarat was conducted for several years, including 2001, 2009, and 2017-18 and 2021, yet “no action is taken for removal of the silt”.

According to him, “The reason stated for non-removal of silt was that the desilting process is done in an ad hoc manner and is not scheduled”, hence, no “budget allocation for this has ever been made”. This despite the fact that there is a clear direction on this by the Central Water Commission (CWC) in the report “Assessing and Managing Reservoir Sediment”, published in February 2019.
According to Pandya, the report said, the sediment-induced problems lead to “a number of adverse impacts not only within reservoirs but also in both upstream and downstream areas of river systems with dams”, leading to several “adverse effects” on river systems with reservoirs.
The negative impact of sedimentation mentioned in the report include reduction of storage volume in reservoirs; flood level increase upstream of the reservoir due to changed river slope; less effectiveness of flow/flood management; erosion and shifting of river banks in the downstream areas; coastline erosion due to the lack of fertile silt and nutrient supply; adverse effect on agriculture, fisheries and aquatic plants in the downstream areas.
The letter also seeks to draw Modi’s attention to about high level of illegal sand mining in river beds in Gujarat “leading to desertification and reduced flow of water”, and high level of river pollution in rivers of Gujarat, with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) declaring 20 of Gujarat’s rivers in the list of “heavily polluted” rivers of India.

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

Search This Blog