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India
We are not doing a true cost-benefit analysis of hydropower dams in India - Interview with Dr. Bharat Jhunjhunwala
Posted on 28 Jan, 2011 05:46 PM Dr. Bharat Jhunjhunwala, past faculty at IIM, Bangalore, holds a doctorate in Economics. He has been working persistently on economic impacts of hydropower dams, applying the concepts of environmental economics to arrive at some interesting results.
His latest book, ‘Economics of River Flows: Lessons from Dam Removals from America’ analyses dam decommissioning examples from the United States and raises some pertinent questions about costs benefit analysis of dams in India. His earlier book, ‘Economics of Hydropower’ raised questions about economic efficiency, viability and sustainability of Hydropower Dams in India.
Parineeta Dandekar, IWP, talks with him on some of these issues.
Dr. Bharat Jhunjhunwala can be contacted at: bharatjj@gmail.com
Ensuring sustainable drinking water security in rural areas - PIB Release
Posted on 28 Jan, 2011 04:40 PM Hitherto the role of the government was that of a service provider, with minimum involvement of the community in the planning process and the implementation activities. With the increase in demand due to public aspirations and decrease of availability of safe water it was considered essential to involve the community in the programme.
To achieve this, there was a paradigm shift and the Framework for implementation of National Rural Drinking Water Programme was revised in 2009. The Department appropriately addressed the soft issues related to facilitating the active participation of PRIs in the process of planning, implementation and operation of schemes to achieve the goal of long term sustainability. It also ensured that the community gets continuous support and handholding so that they are empowered to take up the role of planning and implementing the systems also in addition to operating and maintaining them.
Eradication of manual scavenging - Recent PIB Releases
Posted on 28 Jan, 2011 04:17 PM The Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment Shri Mukul Wasnik recently inaugurated the two-day Consultation Meeting on Eradication of Manual Scavenging and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers.Speaking on the occasion, he called upon the States to work towards eradicating the shameful practice of manual scavenging by the end of the 11th plan. He regretted that despite various efforts made by the Central Government and the States, the practice of manual scavenging still exist in some parts of the country. The meeting was organized by the Ministries of Social Justice & Empowerment, Urban Poverty Alleviation and Urban Development.
Shri Wasnik said that we must address rehabilitation of manual scavengers to our utmost capacity.
Draft strategic plan 2010-2022, for rural drinking water
Posted on 28 Jan, 2011 03:49 PMForwarded to the portal by: Sujoy Majumdar, DDWS through the
Regenerating natural resources and rural livelihoods in rainfed areas of India: A civil society consultation by WASSAN to discuss priorities for the twelfth five year plan
Posted on 26 Jan, 2011 09:13 PMA civil society consultation was held on “Regenerating natural resources and rural livelihoods in rainfed areas of India” by WASSAN at Hyderabad in December 2010 to discuss priorities for the twelfth five year plan. The Planning Commission, Government of India has been steering the process of development in India by conceptualizing five year plans and had sought inputs from civil society organizations, activists groups, networks of CBOs / NGOs, donors and others for preparing an approach paper for twelfth plan.
The objective of the consultation workshop was to contribute to the process of defining broad contours of twelfth plan with a focus on rural livelihoods the thrust area being policy framework, funding support, institutional arrangements etc., by -
- Consolidating the lessons from good practices in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods in the country, that could be integrated in twelfth five year plan.
- Systematically articulating issues and concerns (bottlenecks) in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods, which could be addressed in the twelfth five year plan.
R&D Programme of Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR)
Posted on 24 Jan, 2011 03:32 PMMinistry of Water Resources (MoWR) provides financial assistance to promote research work in the field of Water Resources Engineering. The assistance is provided by way of grants to academicians/experts in the Universities, IITs, recognised R&D laboratories, Water Resources / Irrigation departments of the Central and State Governments and NGOs. Research proposals of applied nature as well as basic research are considered for MoWR support.
Considering wide range of topics covered by Water Resources Engineers, five committees called Indian National Committees (INCs) have been constituted to co-ordinate the R&D programme. The five INCs are:
INC for Hydraulics Research (INCH)
- Management of Floods
- Hydraulic Structures (including masonry and concrete structures)
Development of mathematical models for clean up of Cr (VI) contaminated aquifers using bioremediation – A report by Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Posted on 23 Jan, 2011 09:20 PM. In-situ bioremediation is an attractive alternative for this purpose. To achieve this objective, bacterial strains were isolated and enriched from the contaminated site of Tamil Nadu Chromates and Chemicals Limited (TCCL) premises, Ranipet, Tamil Nadu, India.
Institutional framework for regulating use of groundwater in India – A report by IRMED for MoWR
Posted on 23 Jan, 2011 08:37 PM
The basic objectives of this study were -
Performance audit of Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) by CAG (2010)
Posted on 23 Jan, 2011 07:29 PMThe audit was conducted as a follow up audit of the earlier report on AIBP (No 15 of 2004) to assess whether the performance of AIBP had improved, and also whether the key issues highlighted in the earlier report had been appropriately addressed.
Environment audit report - Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) (2010-2011)
Posted on 22 Jan, 2011 07:22 PMThis document by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) includes an audit report, which highlights issues related to adequacy, effectiveness of programmes, schemes, interventions made by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to tackle important environmental issues like deforestation, biodiversity and pollution control.
It aims at sensitising policy makers to look at environmental issues with a holistic approach and address deficiencies in programmes/schemes/policies so that the environment can be conserved effectively.