Tehri Garhwal District

Springing back to life
Jal Jeevan Mission can go a long way to promote springshed management and ensure source sustainability of spring based piped water supply. Posted on 20 Apr, 2020 11:45 PM

Springs are the key source of water for rural households in Uttarakhand, yet they have seen an overall neglect over the decades with discharge from many springs declining bit by bit. The depletion of aquifers, changes in land use and ecological degradation have led to several initiatives to address springshed management in the state. We speak to Dr.

Image: Flickr Commons
Stop farming on Yamuna floodplains by 2020: NGT to DDA
Policy matters this week Posted on 17 Sep, 2019 05:26 PM

NGT orders DDA to ensure farming on the Yamuna floodplains is stopped by 2020

Yamuna river in Delhi (Source: Sudhanshu Malhotra via IWP Flickr Photos)
What's killing the Ganga?
Nothing represents India's environmental problems as well as The Ganga river. Polluted to the hilt and sucked dry by dams, the Ganga suffers as the government pays lip service to its clean-up. Posted on 11 Jan, 2019 05:45 PM

"An eternal life free of sins" is the promise that comes attached with the magnificent occasion of Kumbh Mela. The 2019 Ardh Kumbh that takes place once in six years is just around the corner. Starting January 15, crores of people from around the world will take a dip in the Triveni Sangam—the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna.

Alakananda near Badrinath temple (Image: Shitha Valsan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA-4.0 Int)
Sacred groves, the water wizards of Uttarakhand
A study from Uttarakhand finds that water from sacred groves conforms to all WHO standards of potability and is of better quality than water from surrounding areas. Posted on 17 Sep, 2018 12:05 PM

Sacred groves are undisturbed or preserved patches of vegetation or forested areas located on the outskirts of villages, towns or plains that are conserved by communities by dedicating them to local folk deities or ancestral spirits.

Auli Bugyal, a meadow in Uttarakhand. Auli Bugyal, a meadow in Uttarakhand. (Photo courtesy: Sandeep Brar Jat via Wikimedia Commons)
Uttarakhand braces itself for dry days
More than 1000 villages of the state are expected to be affected by a severe water crisis. Posted on 20 Apr, 2018 08:09 PM

Lokesh Verma, a farmer from Nainital’s Chanfi village, says this is the third year in a row that he is bearing losses in agriculture. “I have lost around Rs 2 lakh and there’s a debt of Rs 70,000 to pay off. I grow strawberries, guavas and peas in my 15 bighas of land, but there is not enough water in the hills to irrigate crops properly,” he says.

Lokesh Verma at his farm. (Pic courtesy: 101Reporters)
The Ganga has its own website!
News this week Posted on 15 Sep, 2014 09:36 PM

Water Ministry launches a portal on the Ganga river

Ganga river at Kaudiyala
A water supply system that even Delhi would envy
Indwalgaon in Uttarakhand harnessed available government resources to move from a water-deficit to a water-adequate state, thanks to its Pradhan Madanlal. Posted on 06 Jul, 2014 08:28 PM

 Visitors and the Uttarakhand Tourism Department liken the mountain to 'devbhoomi' or the heavens but it isn't often that a villager of the area echoes those sentiments. Most of them are weary of the unending struggle to live in harmony with those steep slopes that make all manner of infrastructure difficult.

Madan Lal gazes at a water supply scheme
Women water managers of Chopriali
Galvanised by the formation of a Mahila Mangal Dal and by some training, these women in a small village in Uttarakhand design, construct and manage their own water sources and structures. Posted on 04 Jun, 2014 01:21 PM

"We did everything ourselves", said the ebuillent Bhuvaneshwari Devi. "We took the cement up, carried the sand, everything! And we even told them where to place the tank"! She went on to narrate how the women's group of which she is a member, taught the men of the village that siting a tank in the stream will place it in danger of being washed away.

The tanks and canals that form the supply system
Sunshine water in Uttarakhand
Churerdhar, a tiny mountain village, used solar energy to solve its drinking water problems. Posted on 21 May, 2014 10:50 AM

Churerdhar, a mountain village in Uttarakhand suffered from a lack of safe potable water. Here, hand pumps used to dry up in the summer and a natural spring 1.5 km away from the cluster of homes that housed 300 people, was the only other source of water. That was its plight in 2002. 

Existing water sources 

Sunshine water for Chureddhar Village, Uttarakhand
The hundredth farmer
In a situation where 99 out of 100 farmers would've been stumped, Soban Singh waters his fields and inspires his fellow farmers using a tiny bit of seepage and a massive amount of perseverance. Posted on 20 May, 2014 11:22 PM

I remember a farm pond that I once visited in Maharashtra. It shone like a square sapphire in that dry land, securely held by tall earth embankments. On the other side of one of those embankments was a parched and dying field. When I asked the farmer why it wasn't irrigated, he asked me to give him a pump.

Carefully mulched and fed by drip irrigation
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