Bay of Bengal

Baitarani River Basin Project is a civil society initiative to proactively explore options for futuristic resources management in this river basin. It also attempts to blend concerns for environment with livelihood, goals of local with global development, issues of rights with market and focus of sustainability with equity.

Courtesy: CGWB

West Bengal at a glance

The availability of water, water requirement versus supply, water requirements for some major crops, groundwater exploitation, growth of population, and declining per capita water in the state of West Bengal are presented.

The groundwater related issues and problems the distrcit include:

"Gasping for Breath" is a study by Janhit Foundation on water pollution in the Hindon river of Western Uttar Pradesh. This substantial scientific report details the gross contamination of the Hindon River with heavy metals and pesticides, and the subsequent contamination of the underlying groundwater water aquifer that his has caused. Consumption of this contaminated groundwater as a drinking water source is shown to be having a devastating effect on the health of the local population. 

The Andhra Pradesh State of the Environment Report is available at the Environmental Information System (ENVIS) cell of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) here. 

The case study of the irrigation infrastructure of Tungabhadra river zooms in on the river, to examine the various schemes on it. Taking the particular case of the Tungabhadra in the Krishna river basin and following the river flow as it is subject to various schemes in time and space, it shows how simmering tensions are likely to manifest as full-fledged conflicts. 

This deals with the proceedings of the first stakeholder meeting held under the STRIVER project for the Tungabhadra River Basin. The meeting involved representatives from different stakeholder groups like the Irrigation Departments and Command Area Development Agencies (CADAs), Forest Department, Pollution Control Board, Fisheries Department, NGOs and civil society groups from the Tungabhadra basin, representatives of Water User Associations and farmers. Only the representation from industries was lacking in this meeting.

The following map from South Asia Network on Dams Rivers & People gives a schematic sketch of the Bagmati Breach site near Tajpur in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district.   

The google map at this URL shows Runi Sayedpur and Sitamarhi, along national highway 77: http://tinyurl.com/lxwfmj