India's Water Security Crisis

According to environmental activists and scientists, dams along with pollution and climate change are among the biggest threats facing Himalayan rivers like the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Ganga

For most pilgrims on their way to Kedarnath, Srinagar in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand is just a town they might stop at for a cup of tea or a snack. Almost equidistant from Haridwar and Kedarnath, there is nothing that marks it out.

However, all you need to do is stop your car just outside Srinagar before you enter it from Haridwar, near the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) training academy, step off the road and take a few steps toward the Alaknanda river.

Almost immediately, the scars of the floods in Uttarakhand would be visible to everyone, over two years after the disaster. 

The SSB auditorium, damaged then, still stands askew with its dome — a not so insignificant reminder of the havoc the river wrought between June 15 and 18 in 2013. 

As if that were not enough, what used to be a park till June 14 now has mounds of muck the river brought from upstream, which from a distance gives one the feeling of impending construction activity. 

Vijaylaxmi Raturi, a lawyer who stays across the road, says most of the muck is debris from GVK Power & Infrastructure's 330 MW hydel power project a few kilometres upstream, which was under construction then. 

In a 2014 report by a committee set up by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF), which said hydel projects in Uttarakhand — home to the controversial Tehri dam — aggravated the June 2013 disaster, there were conflicting views on the impact of the Srinagar project. 

According to environmental activists and scientists, dams along with pollution and climate change are among the biggest threats facing Himalayan rivers like the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Ganga. 

These have a direct bearing on India's water security because Himalayan rivers account for nearly two-thirds of India's national river flows, and 43 per cent of India's population depends on just the Ganga for their water needs. 

India has 4,857 large dams (more than 15 m in height or 10-15 m if it fulfills some other conditions) in operation and 314 under construction. While nine out of 10 dams in India have irrigation as their main purpose, in the Himalayan region, which accounts for 70 per cent of hydel power potential, India, China, Nepal and Bhutan are in a race to build dams for hydro power. 

Source: The Economic Times

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