Interviews

A consortium of the seven Indian Institutes of Technology has been formed and charged with the preparation of a basin-wide management plan to restore the Ganga. What have they proposed for the river?

In an exclusive interview with the India Water Portal, Dr. Tare explained the IIT consortium's vision for the Ganga and the steps that they are taking to achieve it.

Recent news has been flooded with reports of the severe drought situation in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra. Even more shocking are the reports of large-scale suicides by farmers due to crop losses.

More than three months ago, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) had constituted a High Level Committee, chaired by TSR Subramanian, former Cabinet Secretary, to review the key environment laws, viz. Environment (Protection) Act, Wildlife (Protection) Act, Forest (Conservation) Act, and Water and Air Pollution Prevention and Control Act.

Priya Ramasubban personifies the words ‘good things come in small packages’. This sprightly, self motivated enthusiast, saw a marshy, polluted cess pool, hemmed in by an open tract of land, where labourers and migrants daily dipped in for their morning ablutions. Talking to people around, she realised that this soggy piece of wetland was once a lake.

"The agricultural production in our region has deteriorated due to pollution. Haphazard mining has lead to serious drinking water problems in the area", says Indar Bilas Shah, a 56- year old resident of Obada village, Lakhanpur block in Jharsuguda, Odisha. He's not the only one. Thousands of villagers in Jharsuguda echo these sentiments. 

Who's to blame?

Yavatmal, a district in Maharashtra, has gained popularity more for the number of farmer suicides than anything else in recent years. Since 2001, more than 2700 cases of suicide have been registered in this district alone. Poor water availability, low agriculture production and increasing debts are the major causes for suicide. 

In the last five decades, Indore, in Madhya Pradesh, has witnessed a substantial increase in urbanisation and industrialisation. Its population has also increased from 5,60,936 in 1971 to 2,167,447 in 2011 (Census 2011).

Many scientists and researchers have been trying to find solutions to problems related to urban water supply, wastewater management and reduction of energy use in urban areas but very few have succeeded. Rahul Banerjee is one who has.

1999 was an interesting real estate year for Mehdiganj village in Uttar Pradesh. Someone began buying up land adjoining a soft drink factory owned by the Parle Company. They also began buying land from the farmers except the farmers had no idea as to whom they were selling the land to. As the boundary wall rose up, problems arose too.

Born out of the sea, the Ganga basin is a playground of the rivers coming down from the Himalayas. Floods are not a new thing in Bihar, a state in the lap of these flood plains. For centuries, the people here have lived with these waters, with the floods washing away their lands once a year, slowly, leaving behind a blanket of rich and fertile silt.