India has 20 river basins, all over-exploited -Sushmita Sengupta & Rashmi Verma

-Down to Earth

Over 60 years after the country got its first plan to rejuvenate the rivers, not a single basin has been spared from overexploitation

All the 20 river basins of the country share the story of the Cauvery: how human interference has changed every river’s form and flow pattern over the past few decades.

Water in the country’s three major rivers — the Indus, the Brahmaputra and the Ganga — has plummeted drastically. Central Water Commission’s 2017 data shows that between 1984-85 and 2014-15 water in the Indus dropped by 27.78 billion cubic metres (bcm), almost equal to the average water available in the Cauvery during this time. In the Brahmaputra it dropped by 95.56 bcm and in the Ganga by 15.5 bcm.

The report shows another disturbing trend: between 2004-05 and 2014-15, the catchment area of the Indus reduced by 1 per cent, that of the Ganga by 2.7 per cent, and of the Brahmaputra by 0.6 per cent. The per capita surface water availability also dropped from 5,200 cubic metres in 1951 to 1,588 in 2010.

The Ganga basin, the country’s largest river basin, is degraded as forest areas are rapidly transforming into agricultural and urban lands. It is alarming that in the lower parts of the basin — in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and West Bengal — land in many areas has turned barren.

Rampant deforestation has cost the Ganga over 1,500 billion cusecs water near the Himalayas, says Prakash C Tiwari, lead author of a 2015 study on the Himalayan basin conducted along with the Australian National University of Canberra.

It is, therefore, not surprising that along with the Ganga, the flow of its major tributaries has also slowed down. Between 2005-2006 and 2014-2015, the flow of Sone and Ramganga reduced the most — 69 and 55 per cent respectively, shows an analysis by Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment.

Tiwari’s study shows 45 per cent depletion of natural resources in the Kumaun region, 39 per cent in Garhwal, 47 per cent in the Yamuna catchment area, 37 per cent in the Beas catchment area in Himachal Pradesh and 37 per cent in the Teesta catchment area in Sikkim.

The region is now turning arid and has repeatedly witnessed flash floods and landslides in the past 15 years. In the past 30 years, many springs in the region have dried up. The springs in Shilma dried by 25 per cent, in Hamirpur by 31 per cent, in Solan by 39 per cent and in Almora by 41 per cent.

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