Central Water Commission lists 510 large dams more than 2016

The Central Water Commission (CWC), which claims to provide the necessary leadership and guidance for the development of the water sector, does not have reliable information on dams in the country. Neither does it take responsibility for the information on its website. This department is supposed to oversee our rivers and dams.

The CWC’s latest edition of National Register of Large Dams (NRLD) reportedly shows an increase of 510 large dams from the editions in the last five years. The 2009 edition of NRLD had 5,100 large dams and 2016 had listed 5170 large dams, but the 2017 edition suddenly reports that India has 5701 large dams. This is not all. In 2017, there are 447 large dams under construction, while in 2016, there were only 312.

This is not the only instance of erroneous data on the website. The Lower Subansiri Dam, which is in Arunachal Pradesh, has been mentioned on the website as being located in Assam. Some large dams (a dam with maximum height of more than 15 metres) such as Teesta-3, Tashiding Dam and Chuzachen HEP Dam in Sikkim have not even been mentioned in the list. Similarly, dams in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have not been included.

“The website lists the Luhri Dam on Sutlej river in Himachal Pradesh and Pakal Dul Dam in J&K as under construction, but both these dams have not even got statutory clearances. So, it can’t be under construction. In fact, the Luhri Dam has been cancelled,” says Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Maharashtra, suddenly, seems to be the state with the largest number of dams if we were to believe NRLD’s latest edition. The state alone has 354 dams, of which 2,069 have been completed and 285 are under-construction large dams. It must be remembered that in September, Nitin Gadkari took over as the Union Water Resources Minister from Uma Bharti and he had announced ₹55,000 crore over the next three years. It is anyone’s guess where the money ends up.

Even the officials at CWC don’t seem to be perturbed. “We have been updating and compiling this list every year since 1988. Such a large number of dams much have been suddenly included because sometimes it’s possible that the states didn’t mention it. Water is a state subject, so it is difficult to get consolidated information. In the state itself, several departments handle various projects. Data doesn’t get updated because they (the states) don’t care enough,” counters NK Mathur, CWC member.

CWC asks the chief secretary of each state and they, in turn, ask other departments in the state. So, Mathur contends, that it is possible that some data and information might get missed out.

He claims that CWC doesn’t have the authority to question the state officials. “We do a preliminary search on Google to crosscheck details, but otherwise we go by what the states give us,” adds Mathur.

This lackadaisical attitude creeps into the website too as many columns have been left blank, including the river and basin on which the dams are supposed to have been built. Only Tamil Nadu has mentioned all the rivers and river basins for all the dams in the state; Maharashtra has mentioned the river basin name for all the dams, but not the rivers. Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand and West Bengal have not mentioned the river basin for any of the dams, while Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana have not mentioned it for a large number of dams.

This report has been released this year, but the data for most states has been updated only till 2014. Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Mahrashtra have updated the information till 2016, while data from Haryana has been made available only till 2012; Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Tripura till 2013 and all the rest till 2014.