<p>Counter affidavit on behalf of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in OA No 580 of 2022 Mukesh Singh Vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Others.</p> <p>The report dated May
The Satpura Thermal Power Station is situated at Sarni, District Betul, Madhya Pradesh. The study deals with the assessment of the impact of thermal power plant activities on water quality of nearby area, industrial wastes has serious consequences from the point of view of pollution of streams and rivers in India. (2007)
To enlist State in the tourism map of the world, Madhya Pradesh Eco-tourism Development Board (MPEDB) is working on about fifty new eco-tourism projects across the state.
Expansion of NREGA and Tribals Act to be highlighted The Congress will hold farmers' conventions and rallies in all States during this month and April.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Madhya Pradesh government to respond to the Centre's status report on the measures taken for relief and rehabilitation of the families affected by the Narmada d
A map, which pin-points the location of India's remote villages worst affected by malaria, will now spearhead the country's war against the vector-borne disease.
The establishment wants to enshrine Baba Amte so that it can ignore his message, says ANIL SADGOPAL
Public Interest Litigation by NBA on alleged corruption in rehabilitation The Madhya Pradesh High Court has issued notices to the State Government, Chief Secretary, Chairman of the Narmada Valley Development Authority and others in response to a public interest litigation petition by Narmada Bachao Andolan against alleged corruption in the rehabilitation process of Sardar Sarovar Project affected families in Madhya Pradesh. NBA leader Medha Patkar herself pleaded the case. The Bench consisting of Chief Justice A. K. Patnaik and Justice Prakash Shrivastava heard the plea by Ms. Patkar and issued notices to the respondents, including the State Government, Chief Secretary, Chairman NVDA, Chairman, Narmada Control Authority (NCA) (who is also Secretary to the Union Ministry of Water Resources), State Secretary, Revenue Department, Director-General of Police, Inspector-General Stamps and Registration, District Collectors of five districts --Badwani, Dhar, Jhabua, Khargone and Dewas. They have been asked to file their replies within a month. The petition filed through senior advocate N. S. Kale on October 16, 2007, was heard on March 3. The petition alleges that there was a nexus between the NVDA officials and contractors when it came to setting up the rehabilitation sites and this has resulted in preparation of "shoddy and uninhabitable' rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) sites. It goes on to point out that thousands of eligible project affected families (PAFs) have been kept out of the ambit of rehabilitation and resettlement while those not eligible have been declared as PAFs. It is the contention of NBA that the nexus between officials, middlemen and advocates has led to huge corruption and swindling of public money meant for rehabilitation. The petition says the Madhya Pradesh government policy has allowed the land and house-based rehabilitation directives of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award (NWDTA) to be twisted and this has led to corruption. The State rehabilitation policy induced fake registries, where PAFs who were given cash for buying lands actually ended up giving commission to officials and middlemen, it is alleged. By signing fake registries, they facilitated a process where crores of rupees were amassed by officials and agents as commission, depriving PAFs of basic resource security and a better living condition after resettlement. NBA has said in a statement signed jointly by NBA activists Ashish Mandloi, Clifton Rozario and Kamla Yadav that FIRs were filed against PAFs and about 35 of them were arrested. Later all of them except one were released on bail and no action was taken against the NVDA officials though notices were issued to 30 of them. Out of a total of 2,600 land registries claimed by NVDA as part of SRP, 758 are already officially accepted by the government as fake registries, after preliminary enquiry by special departmental officers, NBA has pointed out demanding a CBI probe into this matter.
"At the current pace, on each day of the year, 290 habitations are provided with drinking water,' announced the government in the Budget session to showcase the "impressive progress' made under the UPA's flagship Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission (RGDWM) meant to provide "safe and sustainable drinking water sources' to villages. What the Government glossed over is the official reality check
M. Rajivlochan Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice, Harmony by Ramaswamy R. Iyer. Sage. Pages 270. Rs 350. Towards Water Wisdom: Limits, Justice, HarmonyOUR pot of water woes is brimming over. That does not seem surprising, according to Ramaswamy R. Iyer, since even though India is one of the few countries in the world which is blessed with an adequate quantity of water, there is a tremendous amount of mismanagement of water resources. While the country has over 4,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of annual rainfall and almost 2000 bcm of river flow, the reality remains that we have had constant lamentations about the shortage of water and the destruction of fertile soil because of the overuse of water. According to experts, we have already poisoned most of our major rivers to the extent that their waters are not fit for drinking any more and very soon would be unfit for irrigation as well. Under such circumstances, Iyer suggests, it is important to remove ourselves from the hurly-burly of water conflicts, mull over our relationship with water a little more than it has been possible till now and then, serendipitously think of a constructive way out. That calls for wisdom which has been lacking till now in our management of water resources. In this thought-provoking book, Iyer quickly takes us through the various conflicts that have marked the use and misuse of water since Independence. He looks at the various demand-driven policies made by the government for the management of water. However, fulfilling the demand does not necessarily result in an efficient use of water. For a long time, the main focus of the government was to increase the amount of water for irrigation to increase food grain production. Today, over 80 per cent of the total water used in India is for agriculture. However, of the water available for irrigation, more than 60 per cent is wasted. India is one of the few countries in the world where the cities provide as much as 200 litres per capita per day of water. It goes without saying that most of it is wasted, used for cleaning toilets, washing cars and maintaining gardens. No wonder our fields and cities constantly starve for water and our states busy fighting over it. Karnataka battles Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra fights with Karnataka, Punjab has its sword drawn against Haryana and Madhya Pradesh is getting ready to battle both Utter Pradesh and Gujarat. The fights have become so intense that today even the Supreme Court is wary of pronouncing firmly on the judicious distribution of water resources lest it be drawn into an irresolvable conflict. While the state governments battle each other for water, they find it increasingly difficult to manage the supply to their own citizens. Hence they are trying to palm off the management of water resources to private parties in the hope that private ownership of water would ensure market rates being charged for the water use and correspondingly less wastage. Whether this would generate even more inequalities is a matter that the states are not willing to consider at the moment. All this suggests that we are completely lacking in water wisdom, insists Iyer. Hitherto we have left the matter of planning for water in the hands of experts. Engineers, planners and economists may be very well in providing suggestions on how best to go about using our water resources, but for every expert there seems to be an equal and opposite expert who under political pressure is willing to provide contrary advice equally strongly backed by scientific evidence. Hence, Iyer suggests, the need of the hour is to get out of the conundrums created by experts and apply some Gandhian thinking. First and foremost this means restraining our greed for more water and bringing about a change in the way that we think about water as a resource. The state needs to play the role of a trustee over this resource and the people have to be involved in preserving it and encouraged to live in harmony with nature and each other.
The Singrauli region, in central India, is a nerve centre for thermal power and is called the
