Gutter goes green: MCD plans using sewage to water parks (Times of India-Jan 16, 2011)

Risha Chitlangia

The MCD has come up with a unique way to meet the growing water requirement to maintain its parks in south Delhi. After the civic agency started focusing on building a green capital, parks are getting special attention. But the depleting ground water level is not helping matters. So now, the MCD is planning to use sewer water to maintain parks. To achieve this, MCD is taking the help of National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), a government organization , in setting up a natural plant-based sewer water purifying unit in Chirag Dilli. Under this technology, also known as phytorid, sewer water is purified using special types of plants and stones.

NEERI, which is a part of the Council for Scientific and Industrial research ( CSIR), has submitted the project report to MCD. The plant, MCD sources said, will be installed on Chirag Dilli nullah and the treated water will be used for maintenance of 22 acres of land, including Millenium Park which is spread over 11 acres in Chirag Dilli.

"There is an acute shortage of water in south Delhi. The ground water level is dismal. We have borewells, but most of them have dried up. Hence, we decided to try out this method of using purified sewer water for maintaining our parks,'' said an MCD official. MCD needs just two lakh litre of water per day which is less than 1% of the total output of Chirag Dilli nullah. The flow in the nullah is 80-90 million litres per day.

NEERI experts said to produce two litres of purified water, a small unit would suffice. The best part about this plant is that it doesn't require any machinery . Therefore, maintenance cost is almost zero. "We have to make a small tank of 100 metres in length and three metres in depth. We will then fill it up with stones, some of which are treated with micro-bacteria , and plant water hyacinths, American pondweed, common arrowhead etc. These plants can survive in waterlogged areas and its roots extract impurities from water. When the impure water comes in contact with the roots and stones, the carbon content is oxidized . When carbon dioxide is extracted from the impure water, the treated water doesn't have foul smell,'' explained Dr Rakesh Kumar, head, NEERI (Mumbai).

It takes 24 hours to purify impure water and make it ready for use. The sewer water is released at one end of the 100-metre tank and in 24 hours it slowly moves towards the other end and by then the impurities is completely treated. NEERI has installed the plant in several places like Mumbai , Pune, Nagpur, Nashik etc.

A senior MCD official said: "It will cost MCD close to Rs 1 crore to set up the unit, but it will solve our water problems forever. We might expand this project and treat the entire nullah in the long run. The project should be approved soon. Usually sewer water is not preferred as the foul smell remains in the water. But this project solves that problem.''

WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT

Also called phytorid treatment, is used to rid impure water from various sources of its toxicity It has already been used in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik

Dying rivers: Washed away by our sins (Times of India- Jan. 13,2011)

Nitin Sethi,

Geetika Narang walks around Connaught Place in Delhi, asking random people two simple questions: "Where do you get your water from and where does your shit go?" She is assisting Pradip Saha make a documentary: Faecal Attraction. It's on the death of the Yamuna. "My water? I guess, from Yamuna," says a slightly embarrassed middle-aged man caught by a TV camera. "And the shit?" Geetika persists. "Hmm, there only," he says, as he shies away from the question. Most others are less sure. "Hain, shit? I don't know, man, all of that happens automatically, I don't know." "Goes in the air." "Goes into water." "How do I know where it goes from the sewer?" Geetika records some of the answers and laughs over them later. But where does it really go? Most of it flows directly into our water systems — our rivers, ponds and lakes, seeping down into the groundwater. India generates a massive 38,000 million litres of sewage every day. Even for the record, the government has the capacity to treat only about 12,000 million tonnes, that's less than onethird of the muck. The 35 metropolitan cities of India alone produce 15,644 million litres of sewage daily.

In Delhi, where the government has over the decades spent the maximum amount of resources to clean the Yamuna, 40 per cent of the mess generated flows untreated into the river. The Supreme Court may have been seized of the matter for a decade but nearly half of the population in the Capital does not have a sewage system and the Delhi stretch of the Yamuna remains the most polluted river section in the country.

According to the National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS-3 ), conducted in 2005-2006 , a mere 26 per cent of rural India has sanitation. The urban sanitation coverage is 83.2 per cent and the all-India coverage is an abysmal 44.6 per cent.

So this is what we do — load water systems close by with our sewage and all sorts of pollutants and then go further out to get water. And because water in the backyard is too dirty, we either dig underground or draw it from a source far up in the hills. Water for Delhi, for instance, comes from the Ganga and Beas rivers 400 km away. It is piped all the way to fulfill the need of millions in its unending sprawl. Bangalore has to get it from the Cauvery 90 km away; Indore from the Narmada 75 km away, and Hyderabad from the Krishna 116 km away. It costs 10 times more than we pay in some cases. But someone does pay, upstream or downstream of us.

The end result: we slowly kill our rivers, literally throttle them, even as the groundwater keeps depleting at a matching pace. In the hills, we dam the rivers — drawing water for irrigation, power and direct use. Downstream, once the river hits the plains, it becomes a dumping ground. It's a double whammy for the river and a tragedy for the people who live along it.

Degrading catchment areas make it worse. With the reduction in forests and the disappearance of natural recharge zones in the mountains, less and less water seeps into the rivers. In fact, almost all Indian rivers seem to be going through these calamitous changes. Large stretches of key rivers have become so polluted that they are not even safe to bathe in. More than half the length of the Ganga is now considered unfit by the Central Pollution Control Board ( CPCB). It's the same story with the Mahanadi, with a little over 500 km of its stretch rotting. For the Godavari, it is 1,700 km, for the Narmada 480 km, and the Tapi 400 km.

Take the case of the Sutlej, in which tonnes of dead fish were recently found floating on the surface, their underskin darkened, bellies putrid. This occurrence has, shockingly, recurred in the past four years in what once used to be the lifeline of the state. Industrial pollution, clearly, has taken its toll. Punjab witnesses major aquatic mortality in the rainy season because industries store their potent and untreated water in huge pits and, under the cover of the monsoon and flash floods, release the toxic waste into the river. Skin diseases are common among people who come in contact with the water. Though yet to be proved scientifically, many also link certain forms of cancer and mental diseases to harmful chemicals seeping into the drinking water system. And if life in a river dies, can the river itself survive?

It's just the details that change as one looks across the country at the health of Indian rivers. In the industrial area of Bengal's Burdwan, the Banka river, which runs parallel to the Damodar, has lost its navigability over the years, thanks to silting, dumping of city waste and polyethylene. During the colonial era, Banka was a drinking water source for Burdwan. But now, many points on the river are choked by brickfields and rice-mill waste.

In Maharashtra, five of the 20 notified rivers — Godavari, Tapi, Bheema, Krishna-Panchganga and Wainganga — are facing danger, reveals a survey done by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. While waste water discharge has increased manifold in the Godavari, at Panchavati in Nashik the construction of a dam at Gangapur has significantly reduced the dilution and selfpurification capacity of the river. "If the Godavari river is exploited further, it can die soon," says a chief engineer with the Maharashtra irrigation department. Mumbai's Mithi river is now a drain, but historians and naturalists remind us that there was a time when tigers from the forested area ventured out for a sip. Elsewhere in the state, several perennial rivers have either shrunk or become seasonal. Environmentalist Dilip Gode says rivers like the Kanhan, Kolar, Chudamani and Sitna were perennial until the early 1970s, but these days they dry up by February.

Turn south and the rivers flow no better. The meandering course of the Palar and its gurgling water was a lifeline for perennially rain-starved northern Tamil Nadu for centuries. But today, the 295 km-long water body is called the 'lost' river, vanquished by stinking effluents from leather tanneries lining its basin. And consider this for irony: the completely dry and woefully-polluted Palar bed and its once-fertile farms have now turned into a motor racing track. The tannery hub of Vellore, on the banks of the Palar, is now rated among the country's most polluted spots.

If the Palar has 'perished' in northern Tamil Nadu, the textile export centre of western Tamil Nadu has turned the Noyyal river into a multi-coloured gutter. Tirupur's textile units fetch over Rs 10,000 crore in foreign exchange every year, but the price for the exponential export growth, mostly over the last two decades, has been paid by the Noyyal, whose waters were once famed for being "sweet and tasty" .

Karnataka, too, is in trouble. "There is no dispute about the fact that the water level in the Cauvery has come down drastically," says Dr P N Ravindra of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. "Add to this the increase in total organic compounds in the water due to increasing urbanisation and industrialisation and we have a potent mix."

Rivers are dead and dying in India with no plan for recovery or revival. And though the government has not sat idle, all its money seems to be lost in technical 'solutions' that fail miserably. "Rajasthan was a waterborne state," says Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra 'Waterman' Singh. "About 200 years back, thousands of travellers would stop by Jaisalmer for a drink of water. They poured in everyday in great numbers. But now it is totally dry, the result of doing away with the earlier system of community-driven water management. It was this decentralised practice that had kept rivers alive. Now, the Maru Ganga, or the Luni river, is well on its way to getting lost in the desert trail. The river is near dead. Industrial pollution has murdered it."

Nitish Priyadarshi, professor of geology and environmental science at Ranchi University, says rivers like the Argora and the Harmu have vanished in Jharkhand. "Satellite pictures reveal that small seasonal rivers have been encroached upon in villages, and in cities they have been filled up to construct buildings," he adds. Leading Damodar Bachao Adolan activist Saryu Rai says there's a reason for this. "We have no authority that takes care of the rivers and regulates construction of dams and barrages. No wonder, some of our big rivers look like pocket streams."

Not that we don't have a plethora of laws and regulations. There are wings of the central and state government obsessed with rivers. It's just that they work at cross purposes or remain disconnected from each other. "For the state, the rivers have two purposes — to extract from (and store) and to dump into. A river with flowing fresh water has no value," says Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network of Dams, Rivers and People. "Rivers in their natural state also supply several services to society. It's a source of immense biodiversity, livelihood, irrigation and recharge of ground water. But when the government decides to block a river and build a dam, the cost-benefit analysis does not take these into account."

The trouble, primarily, lies in the disaggregated management of rivers. While the power and water ministries look at rivers merely as a source of hydropower and irrigation, the environment and forests ministry is concerned only with the quality of water and has little control over the planning of a river basin. Then there is the urban development ministry, which wants to set up as many sewage treatment plants and drinking water regimes as it can. The rural development ministry, too, has a sanitation target to pursue.

Laws and regulations do not mandate that the entire gamut of projects on a river basin be tested for their cumulative impact on the river system and the people living near it. Each hydroelectric/irrigation scheme comes up for clearance at different levels — financial, environmental and technical. This piecemeal approach has obvious and inherent flaws. Of course, nobody does anything about it.

So, even as sewage treatment facilities are being built downstream on the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh, dam proponents merrily plan to create dozens of reservoirs on the tributaries to the river, reducing its flow and making sewage treatment ineffective.

"There is no basin-wide blueprint for our rivers," says S V Suresh Babu, a Bangalore-based water policy expert. "There has to be a plan for the entire basin and not individual stems of a system — the irrigation projects, the increasing demand for drinking water, the increased dumping of sewage, the hydropower projects. A plan that says this is the carrying capacity of the river for extraction or for dumping. Or, for just leaving the river alone for a stretch."

The first such attempt, though, has been made with the formation of the National Ganga River Basin Authority, where all the riparian states and various arms of the central government will sit together to plan a future course that will manage both the 'quality and quantity' of the river. But it's a nebulous start — and with a river on which the government has already spent countless thousands of crores to clean up, with little or no result.

Thakkar points out that at the moment the government does not even mandate a minimum ecological flow to be maintained in the river basins. While an unbridled river would be ideal, with so many competing demands on the river basin, environmentalists suggest that rivers carry at least a minimal level of water that keeps the basic ecological functions alive.

Curiously, when Himachal Pradesh in 2007 passed a notification calling for such a minimum ecological flow in sections of the river flowing through the hill state, a power project developer opposed it in court and the environment and forests ministry (MoEF) came out in support of the developer, stating that the laws and regulations did not allow for such a direction.

"We have created this bizarre artifice of river management by drawing political boundaries over resources and waste," says Pradip Saha. "We call the river water as 'x' state's resource and the waste that flows into it as 'y' state's mess. To keep a check on the health of Indian rivers, the basic unit of planning has to be the basin." He wonders if five years from now he'll be able to tell where water comes from and where waste disappears into.

Nor would anyone else, unless a proper river management system is put in place. Everything, as they say, will continue to go down the drain. And as a mahant at Varanasi said, "Where will we go to wash our sins if the rivers dry up?"


nitin.sethi@timesgroup .com

(With reports from Yogesh Naik, Swati Sengupta, Radha Venkatesan, Ashish Roy, Balwant Garg, Priya Yadav, Yudhvir Rana, Anindo Dey, Jayashree Nandi, Sanjeev Kumar Verma)

Idukki faces grave health risks from indiscriminate use of pesticides? (The Hindu 10 January 2011)

Endosulfan liberally used in cardamom plantations
Victim of pesticides: A boy suffering from cerebral palsy near Balagram in Idukki district. His father committed suicide by consuming pesticide.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The perception of threat to human and animal health and well-being in Idukki district, as elsewhere in the State, from the excessive and indiscriminate use of pesticides in plantations and vegetable gardens has risen as never before, detailed accounts by a number of medical professionals in the field indicate, although further research studies are needed to reach conclusive scientific findings on the correlation.
Several hospitals in Idukki district have, of late, reported a rise in instances of chronic poisoning. Cancers such as those affecting the intestinal tract, blood, lungs and liver and congenital abnormalities are seemingly on the rise too. Sufficient studies on their prevalence patterns and links to the use of pesticides, however, are yet to be done.
Official and other sources said Endosulfan, which was banned in the State, was being liberally used in cardamom plantations in the district. The supplies came from Tamil Nadu. Many highly poisonous pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and other chemicals were in use in the district.
Muthuswamy Murugan, Professor, Cardamom Research Station, Pampadumpara, Idukki, said pesticide consumption by the cardamom and tea plantations in the district was one of the highest in the world.
The cardamom plantations, on an average, used 27 kg of active ingredients a hectare while the tea plantations used 9 kg of active ingredients a hectare in 2009. This was when average pesticide consumption in India across all crops was half a kg a hectare. Pesticides were sprayed every 15 to 18 days on the cardamom estates. Thus, there would be 18 to 25 sprays a year against the recommended seven rounds a season/year. Pesticides commonly used in cardamom and tea estates had been found to be very toxic to all forms of life. Their residues had been found in soil and in cardamom pods, he said.
Cancer cases
K. Anil Pradeep, a doctor at St. John's Hospital, Kattappana, said that 10 to 20 persons had come to him with symptoms of lung cancer in the past one year. Previously, he had not seen such patients in any significant numbers. There was also a higher prevalence of liver, oesophageal and intestinal cancers in the area compared to the general population.
Those coming into direct contact with pesticides often complained of allergies, asthma and skin problems. Pesticides caused cancer, impotence and congenital deformities after 10 to 20 years of chronic exposure.
R. Mini, paediatrician at the taluk hospital, Nedumkandam, said the incidence of congenital anomalies such as cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome was high in the area compared to other parts of the State. Three children in the area had meningomyelocele (spinal cord lesion) with hydrocephalus (enlargement of head owing to accumulation of fluid). There was, however, no proof that it was caused by pesticides. (One of the patients at Balagram, near Nedumkandam, died recently).
These kinds of abnormalities have been noticed in the Endosulfan-affected areas of Kasaragod district. According to medscape.com, poisoning is one of the possible reasons for hydrocephalus.
Special schools
Idukki district has eight registered and several unrecognised special schools for mentally retarded. The unregistered schools include one run by Kanan Devan Hill Produce Company (formerly Tata Tea Ltd.). The school at Nedumkandam has 91 pupils, while four institutions in Kattappana town, which is in the middle of the cardamom reserves, have more than 250 children.
Altogether, the district has more than 750 mentally retarded children in registered special schools, while the plantation district of Wayanad with more than two-thirds the population of Idukki has only 341 mentally retarded children in registered special schools. Many children, especially those with afflictions such as cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus, are not sent to special schools; some are cared for by unregistered institutions. So, the correct position about the prevalence of the afflictions can be determined only by household surveys.
V.K. Prasanth, doctor at the Pampadumpara Public Health Centre (PHC), said a Health Department survey in four wards of the Pampadumpara panchayat covering nearly 1,000 families reported 20 cancer cases. However, it could not be concluded that these were because of pesticides without further studies. Several patients had rectal and intestinal cancer.
Poisoning
He said five to 10 per cent of the patients coming to the PHC had symptoms related to pesticide poisoning. They complained of headache, nausea and general weakness after spraying of pesticides. Many who had exposed themselves to pesticides had asthma and contact (allergic) dermatitis. Women complained of irregular menstrual cycles.
Dr. Prasanth said abortion rates were high in his area compared to the general population. However, gynaecologist Joson Varghese of the taluk hospital at Nedumkandam said he had not found any abnormal levels of abortion. Though there were cases of early onset of puberty, such developments occurred in other parts of the State too.
Dr. Prasanth suggested that the high rate of suicides in the district could also be owing to depressive illness caused by pesticides. At Patharippara colony in Pampadumpara, nearly 90 people in the age group of 20 to 45 years had committed suicide in the last few years.
Suicides
Brothers Nobi and Noshi Jose, who had provided vehicles for transporting the bodies, said that they had transported more than 50 bodies in three years from areas such as Patharippara, Kurisumala and Adiyarpuram. However, the numbers had come down now. The suicides were often over minor or solvable problems. Nearly 50 per cent of the victims were Tamil migrant labourers. The prevalence of suicides was also high among a group of people who had migrated from the Kadackal area in Thiruvananthapuram district. Many suffered from depression and drank liquor.
Fish kills
They said pesticides eliminated many invertebrates in the locality and caused fish kills. The local population was less prone to the ill effects of pesticides than migrants.
Narrating his experiences, a worker who did not wish to be named in the media, said he suffered from breathlessness, irritation and burning sensation after spraying pesticides. Falling of pesticides into water courses could not be avoided and fill kills sometimes occurred for up to 2 km from the source of the spray. Many estates used an overdose of pesticides as pests developed resistance to them. When using motorised sprays, one could not prevent pesticides from falling on to the body with changing winds. The winds usually blew away clouds of pesticides to nearby areas, exposing others too.
As vegetables and other agriculture products from the district are sold outside the district, people in different parts of the State are also at risk.
Regards
Usha

Govt co-opts NGOs to solve water woes (Times Of India 12 January 2011)

NEW DELHI: For the first time since it launched a "war for water" campaign following a directive from the Supreme Court, the department of science and technology is all set to co-opt non-governmental organizations into it. During a two-day workshop from January 24, a six-member committee will select from 23 shortlisted NGOs working in locations across the country, for central grants. The government will disburse up to Rs 145 crore to those NGOs to create awareness about water issues, rainwater harvesting and augmentation of water storage in rural areas which receive either less than the optimum 40 litres per capita per day water or get water that is below the set standards of potable water. The 23 NGOs have been shortlisted from an initial 44 applications that were invited in April last year. "The NGOs will give presentations as to the kind of technology they are looking to use, how they will run it for the two years of the grant period and also how they propose to turn it into a revenue model, which can be carried on by locals without any outside intervention," said a senior scientist associated with the programme. The NGOs should have a minimum experience of five years of working in the region where they propose to implement the project, and should have also implemented projects worth at least Rs 25 lakh in the last three years.

Sheila counters Ramesh's statement (The Hindu 09 January 2011)

Countering Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's remarks, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Saturday said both the Commonwealth Games Village and Akshardham temple had got green clearance for their construction on the banks of the Yamuna here.
“Clearances were given”
“I do not know in which context Ramesh spoke. Both Akshardham and Games Village got clearance to the best of my knowledge. They were given clearances,” Ms. Dikshit told reporters when asked about Mr. Ramesh's remarks on Friday.
Mr. Ramesh had said the Games Village should not have been given environmental clearance while there was no application ever for permission to build the temple. He had, however, added that the structure (Akshardham) could not be demolished now.
Ms. Dikshit said the decision to give environment clearance to Akshardham temple was taken by the then NDA Government.
Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy refused to comment on the remarks made by Mr. Ramesh

Villagers join battle against Yamuna pollution (The Hindu- Jan. 10,2011)

AP Volunteers clean the banks of the river Yamuna, polluted by industry effluents, the white froth seen on the surface of the water, in New Delhi. People living in 73 villages in U.P.'s Mathura district have joined the campaign to clean up the polluted Yamuna. File photo

Animal carcasses are not to be dumped into the river, washermen should not use chemicals to wash dirty clothes, the river bank is not to be used as a toilet and no polythene bags — these are among the measures villagers in Rajpura, in Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, have planned as part of their campaign to clean up the polluted Yamuna.

Hundreds of villagers from Rajpura, a few kilometres upstream of Vrindavan in Mathura district, on Sunday pledged support to the campaign to save the Yamuna river from pollution and make its water potable.

With people from 73 villages in the district joining, the campaign has become the biggest public initiative in the region against river pollution.

The man who leads the campaign is Mathura’s Chief Development Officer Ajay Shankar Pandey who, during his earlier stint in Ghaziabad, had changed the profile of the polluted Hindon river.

Talking to IANS, Mr. Pandey said: “We told the villagers not to wait for others for what they could on their own. It is about saving a dying river, a holy river at that. A series of meetings and interactions with the village leaders and activists helped us draw up a plan of action. We are now putting that into practice.”

“We are confident that once the villagers lead and show the way, the city people will not remain idle spectators but will get involved,” Mr. Pandey added.

A super body called the Yamuna Mitra Panchayat will oversee the operation river clean-up.

“A whole lot of agencies have been roped in, including the panchayti department at each block as well as at the district headquarters and the departments of village development, irrigation, horticulture and fisheries. They will coordinate with the Yamuna Mitra Panchayat to ensure the success of the mission,” a confident Mr. Pandey said.

Each village will have a committee with the pradhan as the chairman. The committee will have three members — two panchayat members and either the panchayat secretary or any one interested in water conservation.

Yamuna enters Mathura district near Chondrash village and passes through Banger, Raipur Banger, Tilak Garhi, Barka, Chonki Banger, Bhadaiya and Madaur. After Saraisal the river enters Agra district.

Despite being one of the most sacred rivers in India, the Yamuna in Mathura presents a picture of total neglect.

Court petitions have led to the construction of the Gokul Barrage in Mathura. However, it has not made any difference to Yamuna’s pollution. The river runs like a huge sewage canal transporting industrial effluents and municipal waste.

According to Mr. Pandey’s plan, the committee will ensure animal carcasses are not thrown into the river. Washermen will not be allowed to use chemicals to wash dirty clothes in the Yamuna. One pond in each village will be marked for washing clothes.

The committee will also stop people from constructing latrines or using river banks as toilets.

The panchayat will ban polythene bags and offenders will be punished.

“The villagers will also ensure that idols, toys painted with harmful dyes and puja materials are not immersed in the river. Separate bins will be provided to collect such material,” he said.

The villagers will also help identify the canals and drains discharging into the river, which will be diverted to other routes or would be fenced to fish out polythene and other non-degradable materials.

The plan further includes river ranching, which would be encouraged as it is one of the natural ways of river cleaning, according to the official.

“The movement will for the first time see each villager participating. This can also help in dealing with industrial pollution too. Within a year I assume the water quality would improve significantly,” Pandey expressed his optimism.

River Regulation Zone coming: Jairam (The Hindu 08 January 2011)

‘Akshardham, CWG Village on Yamuna bank shouldn't have got nod'
Dismisses allegations of double standards
“We have to protect our rapidly vanishing riverbeds”
NEW DELHI: Neither the Commonwealth Games Village nor the Akshardham Temple should have been allowed to be built on the banks of the Yamuna, according to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He proposes to issue a River Regulation Zone notification to protect riverbeds from such harmful constructions in the future.
“The manner in which the Yamuna riverbed has been devastated by constructions should be a wake-up call to all of us,” he said. “Akshardham was the first culprit, but after that we have had a series of constructions.”
He insisted that he would not have cleared the mega projects on the Yamuna's banks, but admitted that little action could be taken against them now.
“I don't think the Commonwealth Games village should have got an environmental clearance, I don't think Akshardham should have got an environmental clearance, but we cannot demolish them. We have to protect the remaining riverbed.”
A senior Ministry official pointed out that Akshardham never even applied for an environmental clearance, forcing Mr. Ramesh to correct himself.
It was also pointed out to him that the Adarsh Housing Society in Mumbai, at present in the eye of a storm, is facing the threat of demolition because it had never applied for an environmental clearance from the Central government.
However, Mr. Ramesh dismissed allegations of double standards, and said he did not want “to get into the past… It has already happened. What is yet to happen, we can stop that.”
Both Akshardham, which got the Central government's nod during the NDA regime, and the Games Village, which was granted an environmental clearance by the first UPA government, have Supreme Court rulings in their favour.
“This is why we are working on the RRZ [River Regulation Zone] concept,” said Mr. Ramesh, noting that the idea to set up a regulation on the lines of the Coastal Regulation Zone came from civil society groups. “I hope we can come out with something in the next few weeks to protect our rapidly vanishing riverbeds,” he added.
New coastal norms
The Minister was speaking at the release of the Coastal Regulation Zone notification of 2011, which comes into effect from January 7, replacing the earlier CRZ notification of 1991.
He said the Ministry was considering the demand, mostly from fishing communities, to turn the notification into an Act of Parliament, as The Hindu had reported last week. This could make it harder to amend the rules to provide exceptions to individual projects. “I hope we are not going to have 25 amendments to CRZ, 2011 in the next 20 years [as the 1991 notification had]. We need to get out of this syndrome of passing a law and then amending it.”
However, the fresh notification itself aims to bring about “a better balance” between ecological and economic concerns, said Mr. Ramesh, adding that some economic activities had to be located in coastal areas.
“India must get used to power plants being located in coastal areas. The availability of water, import of coal or uranium fuel… will necessitate power plants being located there,” he said, seeming to defend some controversial projects.
Action will continue on all identified cases of violation of CRZ, 1991, and the State coastal authorities have been asked to identify other violations of the older notification within the next four months and take action within eight months.

Environmentalists want Jairam to “walk the talk” (The Hindu 08 January 2011)

Environmentalists and river conservation activists have hailed the Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's comments about the need for a River Regulation Zone notification, but they want the Minister to “walk the talk”.
Activists who have been campaigning to save the river and the floodplains in Delhi rued that the Government has been dragging its feet on the issue of a notifying a RRZ policy for years now. “What has happened cannot be undone, but the government should now act fast and protect what is left of the river and the floodplains. I submitted a report to the Ministry in 2003 about the RRZ policy, but all these years there has been no action,” said Prof. Brij Gopal, a former Jawaharlal Nehru University professor.
Pointing out that rivers like the Yamuna are dying and losing their floodplains to concretisation in the absence of legally binding policies, Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan said: “If the Minister feels so strongly about the flood plains of rivers, then what is preventing the Ministry from taking action against the ill located, illegal, unethical and unauthorised DTC depot and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's residential structures in the riverbed?”
Urging the Minister to take immediate steps to rid the floodplains of such “illegal constructions”, Mr. Misra said: “Even the Delhi Urban Arts Commission, a statutory body, has found these structures illegal and has directed the Delhi Development Authority to take action, but they continue to remain on the floodplains. What is the point in lamenting the existence of an Akshardham Temple or a Games Village when you have other structures still coming up, despite protests and pleas?”
Activists point out that a RRZ policy is the only way to prevent “misadventures” like the Akshardham Temple and the CW Games Village, DTC depot, the DMRC staff Quarters. “If what has been constructed cannot be demolished, then urgent steps need to be taken to save what is left,” said Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People. He also called for fundamental changes in the sphere of river governance.

CWG Village shouldn't have got green nod, says Jairam (Mall Today 08 January 2011)

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday expressed regret over the construction of the Commonwealth Games Village on the ecologically-sensitive Yamuna bank. He also added that the Akshardham Temple near the Village did not have environmental clearance.
File photo of Jairam Ramesh.
"The Games Village should not have been given clearance. It stands right on the riverbed," Ramesh said after launching the updated Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification 2011.
The multi-crore Village was accorded clearance in 2007 by the Prime Minister, who held the charge of the environment ministry then. The clearance was upheld by the Supreme Court.
The temple, inaugurated in 2005, had courted controversy earlier, with activists approaching the SC over its location.
The temple had not obtained clearance as it was built before 2004, when the ministry's permission was not mandatory.
"We can't demolish the structures," Ramesh admitted.
But he said the ministry was exploring the concept of a River Regulation Zone notification to prevent future destruction of the riverbed.
Environment groups dubbed Ramesh's statement as a "publicity gimmick". "It is nothing more than a publicity stunt," said Manoj Misra, convenor of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan. The group is campaigning for the protection of the riverbed in 'Gandhi giri' style by sending anticipatory thank you messages to senior government officials for removing constructions on the bank. "If the minister means what he says, let him order the demolition (of structures)," Misra said.
Earlier, while releasing the CRZ notification 2011, Ramesh had bluntly said the public must accept the reality of power plants, including nuclear projects, in coastal areas.
"We are yet to come up with a power plant that hangs in the air. Until we achieve that technology, projects have to be located in coastal or denuded areas," he said.
The CRZ 2011, an improvement on CRZ 1991, will not condone the violations made under the previous notification.

Millennium depot: Govt differs with Jairam Ramesh (Times of India 08 January 2011)

NEW DELHI: Even as the environment minister lamented the construction of Akshardham temple and the Commonwealth Games village on the Yamuna riverbed, the Delhi government doesn't seem to share his views. Amid much controversy, the government recently dispelled all doubts about the Millennium bus depot – a 'temporary' structure that was meant to facilitate DTC's operations during the two weeks of Commonwealth Games. Chief secretary Rakesh Mehta said if the city was expected to expand its public transport system, the bus depot would have an integral role in its plans and there was no way that it would be given up after Rs 60 crore had been spent on developing it. DMRC also came under the scanner when Delhi Urban Arts Commission said that the Metro agency had misled it when it had applied for clearances for its residential quarters in 2007. The 90 flats, coming up in two buildings, are located next to the Akshardham metro station. "At that point, DMRC and the consulting architect indicated that the land in question was operational area under the zonal plan of the master plan. That is completely false and they misled us. The land was riverbed area where such constructions are not allowed. DMRC should have applied for change of land use to DDA and then sought approval from the local body. They applied for change of land use only three years later and more importantly, conceptual approval was not given for a housing project which is clearly what the 90 flats being built comprise," said DUAC sources. The bus depot, used for parking 600 buses, was constructed on 60.58 acres in the 'O' zone of the master plan that does not permit any development projects. Environmentalists cried hoarse over the breach of the L-G's moratorium that prohibited construction on the riverbed but while it was being constructed, they were cajoled into believing that the structure would only be of a temporary nature and pulled down soon after the Games. While DTC accepted in an RTI response that the 61.59-acre land on the Yamuna river bed, which it is using as the Millennium Bus Depot, was meant to be vacated and given back to Indraprastha Power Generation Corporation Limited (IPGCL) as soon as the Commonwealth Games got over, Delhi government officials claimed that the land was not river bed and was earlier being used to dump flyash as it was part of a power plant.

Rules flouted but temple to stay: Ramesh (Times of India 08 January 2011)

NEW DELHI: While claiming that Akshardham Temple should not have been given clearance on environmental grounds, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh drew attention to the fact that the temple was built during the NDA regime and had not even sought the mandatory green clearance from the ministry. At the time this happened, many environmental activists had criticized the NDA government. And when the UPA government came to power, it cleared the construction of the Commonwealth Games village on the river bed, ironically, citing the temple as precedent. This was challenged in court and the Supreme Court, too, cleared the village project. Ramesh said: ''We can't demolish the Commonwealth Games village, we can't demolish the Akshardham complex. We have to protect the remaining river bed.'' He added that he was considering a River Regulation Zone notification along the lines of the Coastal Regulation Zone. ''The manner in which the Yamuna river belt has been devastated by construction should be a wake-up call to all of us,'' he said. Ramesh's stand that he was not going to re-open old cases is in contrast to his position on other controversial cases such as Lavasa and Adarsh where he has weighed in to re-investigate years' old cases.

Activists hope minister will stop Yamuna abuse (Times of India 08 January 2011)

AN ECO CONCERN No clearance from environment ministry was required when construction on Akshardham Temple started in 2000
Greens Rejoice As Jairam Decries Construction Of Structures On Riverbed New Delhi: Environment minister Jairam Ramesh might have opened Pandoras Box with his comments on the Akshardham Temple and Commonwealth Games Village, but his comments highlight the malaise that runs deep within our system. The ministers remarks on Friday,that the two structures should not have been built on the Yamuna riverbed,have made the environmentalists happy.They have appreciated the fact that the minister has finally acknowledged these problems in the open,and they hope he will take steps to ensure that such blatant encroachment of the citys natural resources does not take place again.One of the main issues that they hope the minister will now look into is the Millennium bus depot that came up as a temporary structure on the riverbed and which now the Delhi government is refusing to let go off. The Akshardham Temple, construction for which started in 2000, did not then require clearance from the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF).An amendment to the Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 1994 was made in 2004,which finally brought such construction activities within its purview. Construction on the temple started in 2000 after land was acquired from the DDA and UP Irrigation department.In 2003, UP State Employees Association went to the SC,challenging the construction on grounds of environment violations;but the court rejected the petition since petitioners could not rebut DDAs claims of ownership of land.However,an embankment was created to ensure that loopholes in the system were also plugged, said Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan (YJA). By the time construction for the Commonwealth Games Village started,there were several checks in place to ensure that no violation of environment norms took place.However,in a remarkable case of flip-flops,several agencies concerned gave their final nod to the project after having initially opposed it.In the initial phase of construction,YJA filed RTIs that revealed that of the five clearances DDA claimed it had acquired,three agencies had not said yes. DDA had earlier commissioned two studies: the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI),in its study,said construction should not take place on the riverbed,while MoEF raised questions on the study findings by Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS). The Yamuna Standing Committee stated in a July 2007 RTI response that no specific permission was accorded to DDA for raising permanent residential multistorey flats... in the flood plain of river Yamuna. Central Ground Water Authority,which notified the Yamuna flood plain in September 2006,said in its RTI response : no permission for construction of any borewell /tube-well has been accorded by CGWA for this purpose.Eventually,DDA managed to get even MoEF on board,while all other agencies gave their explicit nod to the village. In early 2010,the Delhi High Court acted on a PIL and formed a committee to look into the legal aspects of the village;however,DDA finally won the day after it appealed to the SC against the HC order,claiming that the embankment made for the Akshardham Temple would hold good for the Games village,and by definition,both were not in the flood plain. In a bid to stop any more unauthorized constructions on the riverbed, the L-G passed a moratorium on further construction on the Yamuna riverbed in early 2008,bringing an early end to several projects that had been planned and some that were already underway.The only exceptions were the Metro depot and the Games Village. Six months down the line,DDA also classified the riverbed as zone O in its master plan,the objective of which was to augment water supply,contain pollution and have eco-friendly green development.Nevertheless,construction on the riverbed has been going on unchecked,with most of them being government or state supported projects.Environmentalists have been asking for the riverbed to be notified to give it legal sanctity;the government has been dragging its feet over the issue.

Akshardham, Village shouldnt have got green nod: Jairam (Times of India 08 January 2011)

New Delhi: Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh set the cat among the pigeons on Friday when he said the Akshardham Temple,a project dear to BJP leader L K Advani,and the Commonwealth Games Village should not have been given environmental clearance as they have come up on the Yamuna river bed.This, however, doesnt mean that he wants these sprawling structures to be torn down,he hastened to add.But by pointing out that they have violated green norms,Ramesh has implied that previous regimes have been lax towards environment standards.And this could get some hackles up.If your question is whether the Games Village got environmental clearance, the answer is yes.Should it have I dont think so, he said during a news conference called to announce the new CRZ norms.

RED TAPE UP, WATER TABLE DOWN (Times of India 08 January 2011)

In spite of a looming water crisis, the Delhi government and the various civic agencies are still to get their act together.NEHA LALCHANDANI writes The rapid pace of urbanization is putting immense pressure on the countrys natural resources and one of the first things to run out in the next few decades will be the most basic requirement for civilization water.Delhi is already facing a massive shortage of this precious,and fast depleting,natural resource and the state government and various civic agencies are having to put in place strict controls to deal with the groundwater depletion.Delhis population is growing at a rapid clip with the increasing pace of urbanization and the economic growth bringing in a phenomenal migratory population every day.Since its water resources are limited,supply to several parts has been reduced to once a day while large areas are yet to even get a basic connection.The easiest way to deal with at least part of the problem is to ensure conservation and preservation of groundwater resources,a major component of which is rainwater harvesting.The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has projected a demand of 1,100 million gallons per day (MGD) of water by 2011 whereas the supply has been estimated at only 880 MGD.The Yamuna has no additional water to meet this demand in fact,the Yamuna does not have the capacity to meet even current demand.As several parts of the city,especially the unauthorized areas,are not getting any Delhi Jal Board (DJB) supply,they are dependent almost entirely on groundwater resources.Predictably,this has led to a massive decline in the water table in all parts of the city.In 2001,while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Vinod Jain,director of an NGO Tapas,the Delhi high court asked the government to consider making rainwater harvesting compulsory in the city.By July 01,the government made this compulsory for all constructions coming up on a plot size of 100 square metres or more.In 2004,under a fresh petition,rainwater harvesting was made compulsory even for flyovers that were less than 8 metre in height.Now,10 years down the line,poor and inept implementation and monitoring of the system has killed off the programme the exceptions being in fresh developments,which are primarily riding on increased public awareness and the current brouhaha over climate change.
QUICK BITES IN JULY 2001,AFTER A HIGH COURT DIRECTIVE,THE DELHI GOVERNMENT MADE IT COMPULSORY FOR ALL CONSTRUCTIONS COMING UP ON A PLOT SIZE OF 100 SQUARE METRES OR MORE TO INSTALL RAINWATER HARVESTING SYSTEMS.NOW,10 YEARS DOWN THE LINE,POOR AND INEPT IMPLEMENTATION AND MONITORING OF THE SYSTEM HAS KILLED OFF THE PROGRAMME
Continued
The Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has directed through public notices issued between March 2001 and August 2004 to group-housing societies, institutions,schools,hotels,industrial establishments,farmhouses in South and Southwest districts and grouphousing societies located outside notified areas of the NCT of Delhi to adopt rooftop rainwater harvesting systems in their premises.The ministry of urban development & poverty alleviation (Delhi division) has also made it mandatory under modifications to its building bylaws of 1983 that water harvesting through storing of water runoffs including rainwater in all new building on plots of 100 square metres and above will be mandatory.All buildings having a minimum discharge of 10,000 litres and above per day shall incorporate wastewater recycling system.The recycled water should be used for horticultural purposes".There are those who say that rainwater harvesting is highly cost intensive and they would not be able to derive any direct benefits from it,there are several examples in the country that can prove them wrong.Chennai has had an almost 100% success rate with rainwater harvesting,and so has Bangalore.In these cities,non-compliance of rainwater regulations invites a heavy penalty and the governments,serious about implementing the project,ensured that they had a proper monitoring system in place.Rainwater harvesting was made mandatory for all buildings in Chennai in 2002,and interestingly,almost everyone complied even though the government refused to provide any subsidy for its implementation.The push came from the governments directive that noncompliance of the law would result in a heavy penalty.The government ordered water supply to be cut to those buildings where rainwater harvesting was not carried out.In some places,electric supply was also cut off if residents or owners offered too much resistance.Sekar Raghavan,director of Rain Centre in Chennai,said that results of large-scale water harvesting had become evident by January 2006.In a survey carried out then,it was found that wells that had been dry for over 30 years started getting replenished.After the 2005 monsoon,we saw immediate results.Groundwater levels went up by as much as 6-8 metres in several areas, he said.Bangalore,whose water comes from the Cauvery river nearly 100km away from the city,depended on groundwater for 40% of its water demand,which led to a sharp fall in the water table here.Finally,rainwater harvesting was made compulsory in the city in August 2009 and several households and commercial buildings have either got the rainwater harvesting system or are in the process of getting them installed.P B Ramamurthy,chairman of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB),says that rainwater harvesting became mandatory by an amendment to the BWSSB Act in 2009 and the city was given nine months,with a deadline of May 2010,to ensure that all new buildings on a plot of 30 ft x 40 ft or above and existing buildings on a plot of 60 ft x 40 ft or above had set up rainwater harvesting structures.Jyoti Sharma,director of Forum of Resource Conservation and Enhancement (FORCE),who has been actively engaged with the government and residents to promote rainwater harvesting,says: In Delhi,getting permission for rainwater harvesting structures is the biggest problem due to multiplicity of agencies.Even though the process sounds easy enough,getting the system installed in a place right now is no joke,to the extent that in several cases people chose to pay money and get a completion certificate from the civic agency rather than run around.If the government seems tardy on this,only residential buildings and houses adopting rainwater harvesting can make a difference in the water availability for the city. Simple recharge structures cost between Rs 2,000 and Rs 30,000.However,if a lot of drilling is required along with a tube well,then the cost goes up substantially.Where there is a hard rocky terrain,drilling itself can cost about Rs 30,000.If one is living in East Delhi,they would only require a storage pit and not a recharge structure since the groundwater levels there are still high, says Sushmita Sengupta,research associate at Centre for Science and Environment.In Delhi,if one wants to avail of government financial help for rainwater harvesting,they need to get their plans approved either by the CGWA or the DJB.The CGWA also makes plans and clears the boring of tube wells,but on a highly selective basis as DJB has taken over groundwater management in the city.DJB on the other hand can sanction rainwater harvesting plans but cannot permit a tube well unless an advisory committee,headed by the concerned areas DC,doesn't give permission.The Delhi government also has schemes like My Delhi,I Care and parks and garden societies,which make the interface between individuals,communities and the government slightly easier.Steps for financial assistance for rainwater harvesting Collect authentic data on site for rainwater harvesting,type of soil,drainage system and rainwater to be harvested Get a plan drawn on the recharge scheme with technical design.This can be done by the central groundwater board,an architect or by the rainwater harvesting cell of DJB.Plans not prepared by CGWB (Central Ground Water Board) would have to be verified by it Get in touch with an agency for execution of the project.A list of approved agencies is available with CGWB.The agency will prepare an estimate of the work and expenditure The detailed estimate has to be submitted to DJB through the zonal engineer or the rainwater harvesting cells executive engineer for approval of financial assistance Get work executed Apply to the executive engineer of DJBs rainwater harvesting cell along with completion certificate,payment details and maintenance agreement for release of financial assistance QUICK BITES CHENNAI HAS HAD AN ALMOST 100% SUCCESS RATE WITH RAINWATER HARVESTING,AND SO HAS BANGALORE.IN THESE CITIES,NONCOMPLIANCE OF RAINWATER REGULATIONS INVITES A HEAVY PENALTY AND THE GOVERNMENTS INTENT ABOUT IMPLEMENTING THE PROJECT ENSURED THAT THEY HAD A PROPER MONITORING SYSTEM IN PLACE RAINWATER HARVESTING WAS MADE MANDATORY FOR ALL BUILDINGS IN CHENNAI IN 2002,AND INTERESTINGLY,ALMOST EVERYONE COMPLIED EVEN THOUGH THE GOVERNMENT REFUSED TO PROVIDE ANY SUBSIDY FOR ITS IMPLEMENTATION

Getting dirty helps clean up Yamuna (21 December 2010 Asian Age)

Many efforts and a lot of investment has been put in to clean up the Yamuna in the recent past. While the government is trying its best to preserve a clean Yamuna with various projects on hand, there are many individual efforts too. And many feel that more than sincerity, continuity helps. A religious leader from the Braj region, Ramesh Baba of Barsana in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district has announced a march along the Yamuna from Allahabad to Delhi in March next year to help raise awareness. He intends to mobilise people to clean the polluted river. Reports say that over 15,000 followers from all over the world and other religious leaders would join the march. Earlier this year, in October, before the Commonwealth Games, students from various schools joined hands to clean the river. Interestingly, there have been projects under the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) and the DJB (Delhi Jal Board) that are meant to clean the river of life. The attempts may have been several and sincere, but does getting down and dirty really help? Or does it end as the cleanliness drive concludes? Deena Nath Singh, programme officer, Sahbhagi Sikshan Kendra, who worked on the Yamuna Action Plan II, says that such initiatives definitely help in spreading awareness. “Public participation and awareness programmes that we undertook helped a lot in imparting knowledge about the benefits of a clean river, especially among students,” says Nath, talking about the steps that the kids living on the banks of Yamuna started taking after the project ended. “After the solid-waste management awareness program, we noticed a huge change. The waste level at the banks had reduced. Now, in certain areas where awareness has been more, the level of pollution in the river has reduced,” he adds. But not everyone agrees with it. Some feel that these awareness programmes or cleanliness drives at an individual level, work temporarily. “Till the time it’s happening, people work towards it, but soon after they forget,” says Aman Panwar, a 22-year-old law student, who has actively participated in many cleanliness programmes. Aman thinks that to motivate people to keep working for such causes, initiatives should be taken up to make those who are concerned hooked. “The major problem with people here is that they forget their responsibilities once there is no one to remind them,” he adds. However, Manoj Misra, convener, Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, has a different opinion. He thinks that individual efforts go a long way. “If not many, such efforts at least inspire a few to take up a cause,” he says, talking about the Punjab-based leader Baba Balbir Singh, who was successful in cleaning river Kali Bein. “But one such effort would not be that helpful as a combined time and again drive,” he adds.

Rs. 1,400-cr plans for clean Ganga (Hindustan Times 12 December 2010)

Several new projects worth Rs 1400 crore have been sanctioned for various projects in four states to check pollution in the Ganga, the Centre has told the Supreme Court. The money sanctioned under the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) programme would be spent on projects related to sewer networks, sewage treatment and river front development in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
According to documents filed by the Centre, Rs 496 crore and Rs 305 crore has been sanctioned for Varanasi and Allahabad, Rs 442 crore has been sanctioned for Bihar to be spent in Hajipur, Baxur, Munger and Begusarai.
The documents were filed In response to a petition challenging an Allahabad HC order dismissing a PIL by N Ravindran, who had questioned the involvement of UP Jal Nigam in the implementation of GAP-II alleging it had failed to discharge its obligations in respect of GAP-I.
A bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi dismissed the petition as withdrawn after Additional Solicitor General Mohan Jain submitted details of the utilisation of funds for GAP and the petitioner's counsel said he did not want to press the petition in view of the constitution of the NGRBA under chairmanship of Prim Minister Manmohan Singh.
The court gave liberty to the petitioner to agitate the issue afresh. A bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia is scheduled to hear another petition filed by advocate and environment activist MC Mehta on Monday.

Save the Ganga (Asian Age 13 December 2010)

Vandana Shiva
I am travelling with the Ganga yatra which is a pilgrimage to save the river Ganga. The Ganga is India’s ecological, economic, cultural and spiritual lifeline. That is why we are undertaking the Ganga yatra.The threats to our Mother Ganga, or “Ganga Ma”, are many. Deforestation was a major threat to the catchment of Ganga in the 1970s. The myth of the descent of Ganga is, in fact, an ecological tale.Ganga, whose waves in swarga flow, Is daughter of the lord of snow. Win Shiv, that his aid be lent,To hold her in her mid-descent. For earth alone will never bear. These torrents travelled from the upper air.
The story of the descent of the Ganga is an ecological story. The above hymn is a tale of the hydrological problem associated with the descent of a mighty river like the Ganga. H.C. Reiger, the eminent Himalayan ecologist, described the material rationality of the hymn in the following words: “In the scriptures a realisation is there that if all the waters which descend upon the mountain were to beat down upon the naked earth would never bear the torrents… In Shiv’s hair we have a very well-known physical device which breaks the force of the water coming down… the vegetation of the mountains”.
That is why the Chipko Movement, which was initiated to protect the Himalayan forests, was important for India’s ecological security. I started my ecological activism with Chipko. After nearly a decade of Chipko actions, logging was banned in the high Himalaya in 1981.
The women had given the slogan: “What do the forests bear: soil, water and pure air”, to replace the slogan of commercial forestry: “What do the forest bear: timber, resin and revenue”.
After the 1978 flood in the Ganga, it became clear that water conservation was the first gift of the Himalayan forests. The wisdom of the peasant women of Garhwal is today called the economies of ecosystems.
The Ganga is threatened at its very source — the Gangotri glacier. Climate change has led to the decline in snowfall and an increase in the rate of melting of snow. From 1935 to 1956, the retreat of the Gangotri glacier was 4.35 metres per year. In the period 1990-1996 it is 28.33 m/yr. The average rate of retreat is 20-38 m/yr. If this retreat continues, the Ganga would become a seasonal river, with major ecological and economic consequences for the entire Ganga basin. This is why we need climate justice for water justice.
The Ganga’s tributaries are threatened by dams and diversions in the upper reaches. The 260.5-metre-high Tehri dam, built at Tehri on the confluence of the Bhagirathi and Bhilangana, submerged the ancient capital of Tehri Garhwal, destroyed the lush and fertile fields of the valleys and displaced 1,00,000 people from 125 villages of which 33 were completely submerged. But the displacement due to the dam continues.
At the shore of the reservoir, people were flooded from below and above simultaneously. Fields and homes by the dam shore were submerged as the water level rose from 820 to 835 metres. The authorities of the Tehri Hydropower plant were not willing to release excess water from the dam even though the water levels were affecting the surrounding villages. From their point of view, release through the slush gates was spillage. Mooni Devi, who lives at water level, says: “This used to be such a great place with great farms. The dam builders have turned us all into beggars”.
A chain of hydroelectric projects have stopped the “aviral” flow of the Ganga and in many stretches the Ganga runs dry. The Government of India has been proposing hydroelectric projects on Loharinag-Pala, Pala-Maneri and Bhaironghati on Bhagirathi to tap their hydropower potential. In addition to the already-built Tehri dam and Maneri Bhali-2 dam, a series of dams were planned between Gangotri and Uttarakashi on the river Bhagirathi. It took penance and fasting by today’s “Bhagirath”, Prof. G.D. Agarwal, to stop the dams on the Bhagirathi.
In the plains a big threat to the Ganga and Yamuna is pollution — both from industry and sewage. And even as billions are poured into cleaning the Ganga and the Yamuna through the Ganga Action Plan and the Yamuna Action Plan, the pollution of our sacred river increases because of a combination of corruption and inappropriate technologies.
Industrialisation and urbanisation have turned our sacred rivers into sinks for pollutants. The Yamuna is clean before entering Delhi. In 22 km of its journey through Delhi, it picks up 70 per cent of the pollution of the river in its total length. Various action plans have set up centralised sewage treatment plants that do not work and 70 per cent of untreated sewage is dumped into the river. The river dies because of pollution, the land dies because it is deprived of rich nutrients. As Sunderlal Bahuguna reminded me, Mahatama Gandhi called this “golden manure”. Intelligent zero-waste-sewage treatment systems like those evolved in IIT-Kanpur by Dr Vinod Tare would clean the Ganga and also fertilise the soil. We would not be wasting `130,000 crore on fertiliser subsidies and thousands of crore on river action plans. Organic farming can be a major action for cleaning the Ganga.
The final threat to the Ganga is privatisation. Privatisation of water reduces it to a commodity, makes giant corporations owners and sellers of water and ordinary citizens, buyers and consumers. The role of citizens and communities as conservers and caretakers is destroyed. The human right to water, which was recognised by the United Nations in April 2010, is undermined. That is why when the Ganges water which has been brought to Delhi from Tehri was being privatised to Suez through a World Bank project, we built a Citizens Alliance for Water Democracy and told the World Bank and the Delhi government that our “Mother Ganga is not for sale”. The World Bank project was withdrawn and the privatisation stopped.
The movement to Save the Ganga and its “nirmal (clean)” and “aviral (uninterrupted)” flow is not just a movement to save a river. It is a movement to save India’s troubled soul that is polluted and stifled by crass consumerism and greed, disconnected from its ecological and cultural foundations. If the Ganga lives, India lives. If the Ganga dies, India dies. Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust

New scheme to check Ganga pollution (Indian Express 17 December 2010)

Acknowledging that the two-phased Ganga Action, which started in 1985, has failed to have the desired effect in checking river pollution, the Centre has informed the Supreme Court that the National Ganga River Basin Authority, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, recently decided that by 2020 no untreated municipal sewage and industrial effluents would be allowed to flow into the Ganga. The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister last month. Other members of the committee include the chief ministers of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal and the Union Ministers of Finance, Environment and Forests, Urban Development, Water Resources, Power, Science and Technology.
A detailed 53-page affidavit submitted to the Bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia, Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar by Additional Solicitor General Mohan Jain also says that a comprehensive river basin management plan for the Ganga is being prepared by a consortium of seven IITs. The consortium would complete the job in 18 months, the affidavit filed during hearing of a PIL filed by environmental activist M C Mehta says.
The Centre has already approved projects worth Rs 1,400 crore for development of sewerage network, sewerage treatment plants, pumping stations, electric crematoria on the banks of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
Jain informed the Bench that the Centre has also asked state governments to constitute ‘city-level monitoring committees’ to check flow of pollutants into the holy river.
The affidavit says that though operation and maintenance of assets created under the river action plans is the responsibility of the respective state government, in most cases states have failed to effectively discharge this duty. In this regard, the Centre has sought a direction to the state governments to provide dedicated power supply to sewerage treatment plants and pumping stations so that they can operate round-the-clock.
The affidavit filed the Ministry of Environment and Forests also says that due to failure of courts to expeditiously decide courts cases, including PILs, regarding land acquisition and removal of encroachment room land meant for Ganga Action Plan-related projects, there are cost and time over-runs.

Greater Noida may get Ganga water by 2011 (Times of India 02 December 2010)

GREATER NOIDA: Residents of Greater Noida, who had been fruitlessly waiting for Ganga water for drinking purposes for the past five years, have renewed hope. If things go as planned, Ganga water will be available for consumption by December 2011. This will bring considerable relief to Greater Noida residents, who now face water shortage. The cost of the project will be Rs 300 crore, excluding the cost of the land. Five years ago, the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) had planned to get 85 cusecs of Ganga water for drinking purposes. The deadline for it was 2010. It had been planned that water will be brought through the Masuri-Dehra Ganga Canal. Though Jal Nigam was entrusted with the task, it could not complete it in time. According to a GNIDA official, the deal with Jal Nigam has been called off, and the work has now been given to Development Corporation. A water treatment plant is now coming up at Palla village. ``Water will come from the canal to the plant, and from there it will be sent to various sectors in the city. Land has already been acquired for the treatment plant, and work will start in a week. The irrigation department has already finished lining the canal, so that water does not dry up,`` said the official.

फ्लैट दो करोड़ का, उम्र मात्र 20 साल (Dainik Jagran 03 January 2011)

नई दिल्ली, जागरण संवाददाता : खेलगांव में बने फ्लैटों को खरीदने की चाहत रखने वालों के लिए बुरी खबर है। रुड़की सेंट्रल बिल्डिंग रिसर्च इंस्टीट्यूट के तकनीकी विशेषज्ञों की रिपोर्ट के खुलासे के बाद हो सकता है कि आपके होश उड़ जाएं और आप-अपनी योजना ही बदल डालें। इंस्टीट्यूट के अनुसार, दो करोड़ तक की कीमत वाले इन फ्लैटों की उम्र 20 साल से अधिक नहीं है।
खेलगांव में राष्ट्रमंडल खेल के दौरान इमारतों के बेसमेंट में रिसाव के कारण पानी भरने की समस्या सामने आई थी। काफी प्रयास के बाद भी यहां हो रहे रिसाव पर पूरी तरह रोक नहीं लगाया जा सका था। वैज्ञानिकों के अनुसार, यमुना खादर में बने निर्माण में पानी के रिसाव को नहीं रोका जा सकता है। यमुना की तलहटी में बालू है, जिस पर गहराई तक खुदाई कर इमारत व बेसमेंट बनाया जाना किसी भी सूरत में ठीक नहीं है। इस बारे में रुड़की सेंट्रल बिल्डिंग रिसर्च इंस्टीट्यूट के तकनीकी विशेषज्ञों ने निर्माण कार्य शुरू होने के पहले भी चेताया था। लेकिन डीडीए ने इन चेतावनियों पर ध्यान नहीं दिया।
बता दें कि ललिता पार्क में जो इमारत ढही है, उसके बेसमेंट में भी लंबे समय से पानी का रिसाव हो रहा था। यह रिसाव ही इमारत के लिए खतरनाक साबित हुआ। इस कारण इमारत की नींव कमजोर हो गई और इमारत ढह गई। कुछ ऐसा ही खेलगांव के फ्लैटों के साथ हो रहा है। इसके बेसमेंट में पानी आ रहा है, ऐसे में फ्लैटों की मजबूती प्रभावित होना स्वाभाविक है।
खास बात यह है कि यहां बनी इमारतों को दिल्ली अर्बन आर्ट कमीशन ने कंप्लीशन नहीं दी है। डीयूएसी के चेयरमैन केटीएस रवींद्रन कहते हैं कि खेल गाव के फ्लैटों के कंप्लीशन को अनुमति नहीं दी गई है। जहां तक इन फ्लैटों के निर्माण की बात है तो इसके लिए उनसे पहले के डीयूएसी अधिकारियों ने स्वीकृति दी थी।
वहीं यमुना खादर का इलाका भूकंप की दृष्टि से भी खतरनाक है। यहां 6.5 रिक्टर पैमाने की तीव्रता से भूकंप आता है तो भी बहुत नुकसान होगा। सीबीआरआई के एक वरिष्ठ वैज्ञानिक ने बताया कि यमुना के आसपास के इलाके में निर्माण नहीं होना चाहिए। यह इलाका भूकंप के खतरे की श्रेणी में आता है। उनका कहना है कि सबसे बड़ी समस्या यह है कि इन मामलों पर वे लोग निर्णय लेते हैं, जिन्हें विज्ञान से कोई लेना-देना नहीं है।
सीएजी ने डीडीए से मांगा जवाब
सीबीआईआर रिपोर्ट के आधार कॉम्पट्रोलर एंड ऑडिट जनरल (सीएजी) ने डीडीए से जवाब मांगा है। 30 दिसंबर को डीडीए को भेजे गए मेमो में कहा गया कि एक सप्ताह के भीतर वह बताए कि रिपोर्ट को नजरअंदाज करते हुए खेलगांव में निर्माण कार्य क्यों किए गए?

For Ganga clean-up by 2020, complianc of 33 laws a must (Time of India 25 December 2010)

NEW DELHI: Promise of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to make Ganga water pristine by 2020 appears to be enmeshed in a number of environmental and labour related laws, 33 to be precise. The stress on meeting the mandate of these laws appears to have been driven by the safeguard policies of World Bank, which has promised an assistance of $1 billion for the first phase of the project. The National River Conservation Directorate under ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had said in its affidavit to the Supreme Court, "An assistance of $1 billion has been indicated in the first phase by World Bank. A project preparation facility advance of $2.96 million has been sanctioned by WB." NGRBA's seriousness to live up to its promise before the apex court two months ago is reflected in the latest affidavit filed by MoEF, which said, "Initial portfolio of the project worth around Rs 1,400 crore has been approved for development of sewer networks, sewage treatment plants, sewage pumping stations, electric crematorium, community toilets, development of river fronts etc, in the states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal." But these works had to get clearance under many of the 33 laws listed as applicable for every project under NGRBA. While 15 of them pertained to laws relating to environment, land acquisition, Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ), pollution prevention and control, regulation of mining activities and ancient monument and archaeological sites and remains, the other 18 laws related to payment of proper wages and prevention of exploitation of labour to be engaged in the projects

Munda demands rivers preservation policy (Political & Business Daily 13 December 2010)

Jamshedpur, Dec 12 (PTI) Expressing concern over the "pathetic situation" of rivers in the country, Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda has demanded a policy to preserve them."Discussions on the condition of rivers are being held for the past many years but the country continues to be affected due to improper management of the rivers," he said at a seminar ''Condition of rivers in India'' here yesterday."The importance of rivers for every living being is known and we should focus on concrete steps to preserve the rivers, which are in a pathetic situation ... We will be responsible for the natural disasters if we failed to protect them," he said.The situation in Jharkhand was likely to worsen as deficient rainfall, due to imbalance in nature, was becoming an annual phenomenon, he said.Later, talking to newsmen, Munda held construction of dams responsible for the prevailing condition of the rivers which was depriving the people, specially farmers of water.The condition of rivers like Damodar and Swarnarekha which flow through the state was not good and the issues had been discussed at various levels including with the Planning Commission. But the schemes launched during the last 30 years have not benefited the people much, Munda said.

16 घंटे तो गंदगी ही जाती है यमुना में (Navbharat Times 19 December 2010)

सीवेज ट्रीटमेंट प्लांटों के हालात सुधारे बिना यमुना को साफ करने और साफ रखने का मकसद पूरा नहीं किया जा सकता। ट्रीटमेंट प्लांटों से 24 घंटे में से 16 घंटे यमुना में बिना जांच हुए सीवेज पहुंचता है। ट्रीटमेंट लैब में सिर्फ एक ही शिफ्ट में काम होने से पूरे सीवेज की केमिकल और बायोलॉजिकल टेस्टिंग नहीं हो पाती। साथ ही ट्रीटमेंट प्लांटों में गुजरे जमाने की तकनीक ही इस्तेमाल की जा रही है जिससे ट्रीटमेंट के पैरामीटर भी पूरे नहीं हो पाते। उम्मीद है कि जल्द ही जल बोर्ड के सीवेज ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट में नई तकनीक इस्तेमाल की जाने लगेगी। जल बोर्ड इसे लेकर गंभीर है और कई कंपनियां नई तकनीकों को लेकर अपना प्रेजेंटेशन दे चुकी हैं। दिल्ली में 17 सीवेज ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट हैं। जिनमें 512 एमजीडी सीवेज का ट्रीटमेंट होता है। यमुना विहार में 25 एमजीडी, कोंडली में 45 एमजीडी और ओखला में 30 एमजीडी का ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट बन रहा है। ट्रीटमेंट प्लांटों के लिए 6 जोनल लैब हैं। यहां ट्रीटमेंट के पैरामीटर की जांच की जाती है। आधिकारिक सूत्रों ने बताया कि सीवेज लैब में स्टाफ की भारी कमी है। जिससे पैरामीटर चेक हुए बिना ही सीवेज यमुना में जा रहा है। लैब में सिर्फ दिन की शिफ्ट में काम होता है और बाकी वक्त लैब में कोई काम नहीं हो पाता। जिससे ज्यादा बीओडी, सीओडी, पीएच, हेवी मेटल्स, टीडीएस, ऑयल, ग्रीस वाले और पानी, पर्यावरण को प्रदूषित करने वाले तत्व भी बिना जांच के ही ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट से बाहर आ जाते हैं और यमुना में डाल दिए जाते हैं। जानकारों के मुताबिक, जब तक लैब में तीन शिफ्ट में काम नहीं होता, तब तक यमुना में अनट्रीटेड सीवेज जाता रहेगा। जहां कम से कम 100 लोगों के स्टाफ की जरूरत है वहां सिर्फ 30 लोग काम कर रहे हैं। सीवेज सिस्टम की हालत भी काफी बुरी है। ह्यूमन राइट्स कमिशन के साथ जल बोर्ड की कम से कम 34 मीटिंग हो चुकी हैं और वह हर बार कहते हैं कि सीवेज सिस्टम को सुधारा जाए। सूत्रों ने बताया कि सीवेज ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट में भी हालत काफी खराब है। न तो नई तकनीक है और न ही मेंटिनेंस सही से हो पा रहा है। ऐसे में ट्रीटमेंट कैसे पैरामीटर पर खरा उतरता है यह कोई नहीं बता सकता। ट्रीटमेंट प्लांट से भी अनट्रीटेड सीवेज यमुना तक पहुंच रहा है। वैसे अब जल बोर्ड सीवेज सिस्टम को सुधारने को लेकर गंभीर हुआ है। सूत्रों ने बताया कि कुछ दिनों पहले हुई एक मीटिंग में करीब 6 देसी-विदेशी कंपनियों को सीवेज ट्रीटमेंट के लिए नई तकनीक का प्रेजेंटेशन दिया है। इसे जल्द ही फाइनल कर दिया जाएगा। नई लैब बनाने पर भी विचार किया जा रहा है। उन्होंने कहा कि अभी हम एडवांस देशों से काफी पीछे हैं और जहां लगभग हर देश एमबीआर टेक्नीक यूज कर रहा है वहीं हमारे यहां बहुत पुरानी तकनीक से काम हो रहा है। जल बोर्ड के कई एक्सपर्ट दूसरे देशों से नई तकनीक की ट्रेनिंग भी ले कर आए लेकिन यहां नई तकनीक नहीं होने से उनमें से ज्यादातर लोग अब रिटायर भी हो चुके हैं। जल बोर्ड के अधिकारी ने कहा कि जब तक प्लांटों के अंदर मेंटिनेंस सही नहीं होगा, लैब की हालत नहीं सुधारी जाएगी और हाई टेक उपकरणों का अभाव रहेगा, तब तक हम खुद ही यमुना को गंदा करने के लिए जिम्मेदार होंगे।