Water

Flouting of environmental norms and forest laws in the construction of irrigation projects in Karnataka are now going the mini-hydel projects way. The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) is organising a public hearing for this irrigation scheme long after the project was completed for all practical purposes. And that too without an environment clearance from the Centre. It's not as complicated as it may sound. Proponents of any project of a particular scale are supposed to start work...

Most river basins in India are under duress, and stand in the mortal danger of moving to the "extremely high" level of baseline water stress. Though India does not figure in the list of 37 countries which face “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress, using more than 80 percent of their available water supply every year, it is close enough at 41 position, according to the first-ever global water stress rankings. The rankings, created by the US-based World Resource Institute's Aqueduct...

Buzzwords often keep changing, sometimes for the better. The newest one is 'cricket for sustainable development'. To borrow a cliche, this is one with a difference. That's because this is a project that comes with an in-built campaign component. This is the Green Wicket project of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) which seeks not only to establish it as a seal of approval for eco-friendly and resource-efficient stadia, but also promote eco-friendly practices among fans and the...

It doesn't take much of hair-splitting to find faults with projects of the Karnataka government. Many of these are replete with glaring loopholes, and are often done without even token transparency. The Rs8,323 crore Yettinahole diversion project is one such. It may not qualify as a "scam", but prima facie it certainly is one. It was only after the project report was obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) by activist Kishore Kumar Hongadhalla that the scale of ecological devastation...

For a water-scarce city where there's a vehicle for every two persons, a cutdown in water consumption towards cleaning cars would be a most welcome step. A high-pressure car washer launched on Tuesday can bring down this water consumption by 55 per cent — something that may be welcomed by many. "By falling back on the usual way of cleaning cars with buckets, one would end up using as many as four of them — that would be roughly 100 litres of water. However, with a high-pressure washer, you would...

It’s not a problem as yet, but the first signs of trouble have been found by a bunch of schoolchildren. The issue is that of fluoride content in drinking water in the state. The Schools Water Portal, an initiative of Arghyam, has found fluoride content in seven places in the state: Bellary, Kudremukh, Kasargod, Mangalore, Belgaum, Kopal and Bangalore North. According to Priya Desai of Arghyam, the Schools Water Portal is an online platform that shares learning resources on water with parents...

It’s bad news for all – from farmers to policymakers. Yields of tea, coffee and cardamom from high altitude plantations in the Western Ghats are falling because of the changing regional climate. Worse, the region is likely to see a 1.7-1.8 degrees C rise in temperature by 2030. Rainfall may increase in most parts, but the number of rainy days will go down. If that is not all, sediment yield is on the rise with the increasing intensity of rainfall. The warning comes in a hardhitting report ‘Water...

The term “water woes” has today become a cliché. But it’s not water supply issues or the associated woes that are disturbing. What is, is the fact that water has been disappearing right from under our noses. Bulk of the water supplied to Bangalore has to be carried from afar because there’s precious little groundwater left. Najeeb KM, regional director of the south-western zone of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) offers a pointer as an explanation: “One of the prime reasons groundwater...

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recalcitrant stand on the sharing of the Teesta river waters with Bangladesh has been widely criticised in that it has severely strained bilateral relations. In the bargain what has been sidelined has been the issue of the river itself. The cruel truth is that the last stretch of the Teesta river is under threat of disappearing underground — forever. The cascade of “run-of-the-river” dams being built on the Teesta and its tributaries require extensive...