Short circuit

STRAIT FORWARD A 150-year-old dream acquires shape

On privatising water

Wherever they exist India's urban elite splash on subsidies B Ashok a regime of pro-rich subsidies have ensured India's urban elites happilly benefit from organised water supply and sewage treatment services, wherever they exist.

People's initiatives

STOMPING ON A DREAMThe incomplete check dam at Goudpali village in Naktideul Block of Sambalpur, Orissa, stands testimony to the insensitivity of the laws and the government to the needs of the people. The government has forced work to stop on the check dam being built by people.

Promised land turns arid

PEOPLE displaced by the Pong dam are still waiting to be rehabilitated, forty years after the dam was built. They were promised canal-irrigated land in Ganganagar district, but the Rajasthan government is now offering them semiarid land in Bikaner. The dam in Himachal Pradesh supplies water to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

Desperate for Expressway

Setting aside environmental concerns and ignoring the threat to one of the most fertile belts in India, Uttar Pradesh government is set to start work on the eight-lane expressway along the Upper Ganga Canal. The 147.8 km expressway will connect Greater Noida in Gautam Budh Nagar district and the Uttar Pradesh- Uttarakhand border.

Supreme Court allows canal work

THE Supreme Court has allowed the Madhya Pradesh government to resume construction of canal networks of Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dam projects on the Narmada. On February 25, the court overturned the state high court order that halted the work following a petition by activist Medha Patkar. She had demanded work should resume only after Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF)  clears the plan for afforesting and treating the river’s catchment area.

SC orders land compensation

Families that lost 60 per cent or more land to canal construction for the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dam projects in Khandwa and Khargone districts of Madhya Pradesh should be given cultivable land as compensation, the Supreme Court has ordered. In doing so, the court acknowledged the rights of families affected by canal construction as a category separate from those affected by dam reservoir submergence.

Diminishing returns

Wilted crops dot the countryside; farmers cry for water, electricity "August is the time when we have at least 3.5 feet (one metre) tall bajra, but this year the land looks as barren as nothing has ever been sown here," said Mewa Singh. "It drizzled just once in July. I have never seen this in 50 years of my life."

The information is public

Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee bound by law to respond to RTI applications

Reserve game

CEC observes violations in forest laws, orders 'no further action' The Haryana Forest Department is busy withdrawing all complaints against contractors and district officials for violating wildlife and forest laws in connection with the construction of a canal through Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary (sws).