News and Articles

Based on the recommendations contained in the Report of the Technical Committee chaired by Dr. C. H. Hanumantha Rao released in 1994, the Common Guidelines (1994) were issued by the Ministry of Rural Areas & Employment (now Ministry of Rural Development) and the watershed approach was adopted for implementation of all Area Development Programmes viz. DPAP, DDP, IWDP and the watershed component of the EAS w.e.f. 1^st April 1995. Taking the above into consideration, Government of India had constituted a Committee on Training under the Chairmanship of Shri V. B. Eswaran to go into all aspects of training under the Common Guidelines.

The report released in 1997, presents a review of the existing training arrangements for watershed development and suggests a system for organizing training for different level of functionaries. The need for detailed guidelines, to be prepared at the State level for this purpose is suggested. There is also a need for developing an institutional mechanism for providing training as soon as there are changes in the incumbent. Once a project is sanctioned, the Project Implementing Agency (PIA) should know the various tasks to be undertaken as regards training and the institutions to be approached for this purpose.  

The Vaidyanathan Committee was set up by the Planning Commission, to review the existing water rate structure and the extent of subsidy in Government and Public Sector irrigation projects. It suggested the norms for fixing water rates, cost escalation on the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) component of economic water rates, conversion of volumetric supply of water rates from crop-wise and area-wise water rates for different agro-climatic zones. Based on these, it suggested organizational measures including a mechanism for efficient recovery ofeconomic water rates and operating controls for ensuring levy of appropriate irrigation water rates by the States. 

The study determines rates of sedimentation and estimates the useful life of Dal-Nagin lake situated in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir using radiometric techniques. In spite of various ecological problems the lake is the largest freshwater lake in India. It has four major sub-basins viz., Hazratbal, Bod Dal, Garibal and Nagin. The lake is fraught with the problem of growth of underwater weeds and increasing rate of sedimentation.

The study deals with the development of an operation policy for the Tawa dam. It adopts rule-curve based policy for conservation regulation of the dam developed for three levels viz. upper rule level, middle rule level (critical for irrigation) and lower rule level (critical for water supply and upstream use). The generated simulation model developed by the Water Resources System Group at the National Institute of Hydrology is used to simulate the system operation and to refine the rule curves.

The study deals with flood plain mapping in a part of Yamuna basin between Gangoh and New Delhi. A flood is a markedly high stage of flow in a river and may inundate adjoining lands, which is called the floodplain of a river. So, floodplain is land inundated by a flood of given frequency. Alternately it is also defined as flat land between valley walls.

In this study, HEC 2 programme has been implemented on river Digaru to compute flow regime or the water surface profile for various discharge conditions. In this reach, two bridges have been considered to compute water surface elevations, critical water surface elevations, energy grade elevations & slope, velocity in the channel, flow area, top width and Froude Number.

We had mentioned while dispatching our 1st Issue of River Basin Transact  that the present pace and direction of development bandwagon in Odisha, made it imperative for its civil society and citizens alike to give more attention to its rivers, before it became too late.

During this quarter (Apr-Jun), there are quite a few such civil society responses towards redefining the way our rivers are being managed. While Dakshin Odisha Vikash Parishad (DOVP) came up with a suggestion to have Integrated River Valley Project in line of TVA in USA to manage South Orissan Rivers, State Govt resolved not to allow any new industry to draw water from the Brahmani and the Baitarani. Towards the end of the quarter alignment of civil society and political parties around MBA (Mahanadi Banchao Andolan) to protest diversion of Mahanadi water to POSCO and IOC made the headlines local dailies.

This is the first in a new series of articles that IWP will host on various aspects of Environmental Flows. We welcome your comments and original articles for this series, please mail us at portal@arghyam.org

The other side of the story: Free-flowing rivers around the world

With around 5100 large dams, India ranks third in the world with regards to the number of large dams. The ongoing debate over the economic, social and environmental costs of large dams has indicated many times that these costs are not commensurate with their benefits. Although we have dammed all our major rivers, (except Brahmaputra and plans to dam its major tributaries are on way, some like Ranganadi have already been dammed), profoundly changing their hydrological, ecological, social and cultural systems, we are yet to form a policy which states that environmental flows in rivers are a necessity. It is more than clear now that environmental flows relate to well being of not only ‘birds and fishes’, but also of the entire human society . Take an example of fisheries, lack of flows in rivers and contractor-owned reservoir fishing has affected the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of small fishermen . Environmental flows also dilute pollution load, so let us not hide behind the fact that pollution is wiping out our riverine fish, not the absence of flows. It is also clear that environmental flows do NOT mean a decommissioning of all the present dams, nor do they mean any random figure like 60% or 10% of MAR . Eflows require reaching a wise compromise through science and local negotiations, for each river.

While many countries have put in place policies and laws for maintaining environmental flows in their rivers, there is also a rarer category: Rivers which have not been dammed yet, rivers which retain their connection from the source to the sea, nurturing myriad ecosystems and communities in their wake! These are known by many names like Free flowing rivers, Wild Rivers, Pristine/ Virgin rivers, Heritage Rivers, etc., each indicating their rare character and value. In ecological and cultural terms, the value of these rivers is immense and as more and more rivers are being dammed the world over, this value is increasing steeply. Unfortunately, in today’s economic terms, these rivers are still waiting to get their due recognition, but as human systems evolve, they will surely be seen as ‘invaluable’ service providers with phenomenal use and non use values.

The report presents the groundwater balance for the Southern Channel command area of the Pennar delta canal system as a part of the conjunctive use studies in the area. In a hydrological system, surface water flows, low or high, do not necessarily coincide with the low or high levels in groundwater, because of the sluggishness of the groundwater flow compared to surface water flow.

The study deals with dam break analysis of Barna dam located in the state of Madhya Pradesh carried out using the popular National Weather Service Dam Break Flood Forecasting (NWS DAMBRK) model to assess the likely maximum flood discharge and elevation to be attained in Bareli township, 22 km downstream of the dam.