Urban consumption

The Renuka Dam Project proposed over the river Giri Ganga (a tributary of the Yamuna) located some 300km away from Delhi, is a joint project of the governments of Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Delhi, to be constructed by the Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (HPPCL) in Sirmaur district of HP. While HP hopes to generate 40MW of power from this project, Delhi hopes to meet 1250 MLD of its total 3500 MLD requirement from this project.

While Delhi stands to benefit from the project, Renuka Valley is to suffer a high social and environmental cost. 550 families in 17 panchayats will be displaced and 1630 hectares of land, including 49 hectares of Reserve Sanctuary will be submerged. Most of the affected are farmers, who point to the many crops they grow and from which they make a decent living, exposing the false claims of government officials who claim this is a barren and desolate area. Despite local opposition, the project has been granted environmental clearance by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), and forcible land acquisition by the HPPCL is underway.

All this, while Delhi continues to waste water at the rate of 1300 MLD (40% of the total 3500 MLD supplied to city never reaches its people) and make its own rivers, ponds and lakes disappear, to meet its greedy urban expansion plans. Delhi, in fact does not suffer from shortage of water but from unequal distribution, with sarkari areas of Delhi getting supply of 300 LPCD, 10 times the amount of water received in other areas like Mehrauli. And already, Delhi sources water from the Bhakra Nangal Project, Tehri Dam Project and directly from the rivers Yamuna and Ganga, and Renukaji is its next but certainly not last stop.

While the government justifies the dam in the ‘national interest’, the video attempts to brings out the perspective of citizens of Delhi and Renuka Valley, and leaves one wondering just how Delhi is in the national interest and Renuka valley is not.

To support or follow this movement, contact members of the Ma Renukaji Sangarsh Samiti: Puranchand Sharma at +91-9318879228 or Manshi Asher at +91-9816345198, or email Manshi at manshi.asher@gmail.com.

A one-day “Action plan workshop for the rejuvenation and sustenance of Arkavathi river basin”, was organised on 25th July 2009, by the Global Academy of Technology and Geological Society of India at Bangalore, to discuss the future of the dying Arkavathi river and Bangalore's precarious water situation, and to develop concurrent implementable action plans to address the problem. The Arkavathi is a tributary of the river Kaveri, originating in Nandi Hills in Chikkaballapur district, that provides about 20% of the total water requirements of Bangalore, with Kaveri providing the remaining 80%.Read More

This research study, by Veena Srinivasan, addresses the challenge of supplying water to rapidly growing cities in South Asia, using evidence from the water-scarce city of Chennai. Chennai (formerly Madras) is a rapidly growing metropolis of over 6.5 million people, whose infrastructure has not kept pace with its growing demand for water. In the year 2003-2004, Chennai experienced a severe water crisis, the piped supply for the entire city was virtually shut down for a 12-month period. Consumers became dependent on private tanker suppliers trucking in untreated groundwater from peri-urban areas.Read More

StakeholdersRead More