Affidavit filed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the matter of News item titled "Glacial lakes multiply in Himachal Pradesh and Tibet, posing a threat to lives and infrastructure downstream" appearing in the Hindu, August 11, 2024. The report said that the Ministry of Jal Shakti …
India is endowed with annual average rainfall of nearly 1,200 mm but a very small proportion of it is managed effectively. The various estimates on potential for rainwater harvesting suggest vast opportunities for mitigating the shortages. However, the socio-administrative measures in vogue do not encourage participation by the beneficiaries. There …
Conditions of water scarcity have been aggravated in Vadali village of Gujarat due to the persisting differences between higher castes, chiefly the ahirs, and those lower in the hierarchy such as the kolis and other dalit castes. Power relations are linked to social and economic hierarchy and the issue of …
Even as citypeople all over India were finalising their Christmas party-hopping plans, a celebration of a very different kind galvanised Junagadh district, Gujarat. From December 23 to 26, 2002, thousands of villagers from villages in Keshod, Maliya, Memdarda and Mangrol talukas went on a padayatra (footmarch). Their mission? Sensitising and …
This is a story of hope and of a major change. For the first time in the last 50 years, several state governments are dealing with drought in a different way
For all the people scripting the success stories, there is a warning: history has seen the death of millions of the country's water structures due to government's apathy. Now, for the first time in the last 50 years governments have really shifted their focus to drought proofing from the adhoc …
Keshubhai Patel Chief minister, Gujarat On overflowing check dams: We needed a permanent solution that not only drought-proofs the state but also provides livelihoods. The effort is to trap every drop of rainwater through check dams. The overflowing dams are a lesson for people to take up more water conservation. …
Digvijay Singh Chief minister, Madhya Pradesh On institutionalisation of structures: They are already public property. They were built according to needs of the people. For example, the farmers themselves have worked on the recharging of wells without any government money. Though loans are given, the wells belong to the people. …
This is not the only hurdle in making water conservation a long sustained movement. To make it a sustainable social movement and to reap its dividend in the form of poverty eradication, the government needs to put in prolonged efforts. Most of India's poverty eradication programmes have failed because they …
Investment in water is an insurance against poverty and drought. Down To Earth reporters visited the eight villages below during the droughts of 2000 and 2001. These villages have several years of experience in water conservation. The inference: the more the years of water conservation, the more the capacity to …
It is an unnecessary controversy over ownership of rainwater. The johad (traditional check dam) of Lava ka Baas in Alwar district of Rajasthan has been in the eye of a storm and so has Kamla Beniwal, Rajasthan irrigation minister. Claiming rainwater to be government's property, she supported the demolition of …
Along with Tarun Bharat Sangh ( tbs) co-workers, Gopal Singh stood by the villagers during their vigil at the Lava ka Baas johad. Credited with having designed over 4,500 water harvesting structures, this johad has also been designed by him. To express solidarity, villagers from neighbouring villages had come to …
Water laws in India are archaic and anti-people. Made to disempower rather than empower communities, these are used to terrorise the people rather than assist them. Secretary of tbs , Rajendra Singh received notices from the Rajasthan irrigation department stating that the johad constructed by the villagers of Lava ka …
All attempts by cse coordinator Indira Khurana to meet Rajasthan irrigation minister Kamla Beniwal went in vain. The minister refused to give an appointment. Khurana was directed to speak to the irrigation secretary who passed on the buck to the additional secretary cum chief engineer. She decided to call it …
Kalakhoont village's spin out of the poverty cycle began on a rainy day in June this year. Four days of rain filled up to the brim the long-forgotten tank in this nondescript village of Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh ( mp ). Now almost the entire village is encircled by …
To fight drought, the Madhya Pradesh government embarked on a water conservation drive in February this year with its Pani Roko Abhiyan (Stop Water Campaign). The state administration geared up to reach all its 52,000 villages. It was inspired by an earlier effort of the state to conserve water through …
