-The Telegraph The Telegraph reports on a riverine community’s determination to save its environs Once upon a time, when my forefathers were looking for land to settle down, they found this barren sandbar and decided to make it a habitable place,” says Nani Roy, 42, a resident of Manachar. Char is the Bengali word for sandbar. Manachar is the sandbar that extends from Durgapur Barrage to Panagarh in Burdwan district. About three...

-Down to Earth A lot needs to be done to ensure faecal sludge is treated before reaching water source Are we losing focus of the Prime Minister’s dream project Swachh Bharat Mission (grameen)? Whatever the answer is, the fact is we cannot afford to do so.  In October 2019, rural India was declared open-defecation free. By this, the department of drinking water and sanitation under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti meant that...

-Down to Earth A breach in the dam could affect millions of lives and damage property Gandhi Sagar Dam on Chambal River in Madhya Pradesh is in need of immediate repair, warned a new report. It is one of the five water reservoirs of national importance.  Absence of regular checks, non-functional instruments and choked drains are the major problems plaguing the dam for years, the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of...

-The Hindu From urbanisation to missing links of stormwater drains, the maps tell it all. Every rainy season, Chennai is flooded. Some of its streets get inundated even after a single spell. The maps show that as the need for residential units grew, houses were built in low-lying areas and floodplains, leading to stagnation. The loss of a portion of the Pallikaranai marshland added to the crisis. Moreover, many missing links of...

-Down to Earth Pond-based greywater treatment systems in Kurak Jagir village in Karnal district, Haryana, absorb greywater  More than 70 per cent of freshwater across rural households in India gets converted to greywater. With the Union water ministry’s Jal Jeevan Mission providing tap water connection to every rural household at the rate of 55 litres per capita per day, the problem is set to intensify. Greywater refers to wastewater from non-toilet systems, that...