Case3-July-2017

Tamil Nadu River Week – 2017

"By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers, and lakes".

- 'Transforming our worlds: the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development', UN General Assembly, 2015 (one of 169 targets)

Rivers are an important source of fresh water and considered as the lifeline of any nation. India is blessed with numerous river systems, both perennial and nonperennial. The water from the river systems is used for drinking, irrigation, transportation, electricity, and fisheries. From ancient times, civilisations have prospered on the banks of rivers across the world. The health and ecology of the rivers are pertinent to a country’s economic growth and food security. WWAP (World Water Assessment Programme, UNESCO) states that ‘‘More than 80% of sewage in developing countries is discharged untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and coastal areas.’’ India is also following the same pattern, thereby polluting India’s precious water resources, especially the rivers.

Tamil Nadu has 17 major and minor rivers and most of them are heavily disintegrated. A few of the rivers are west flowing, but the majority are east flowing originating in the Western Ghats, the most important being the river Cauvery and its tributaries (Bhavani, Noyyal, Amaravathi, and Kodaganar), Vaigai, Gundar, Vaippar, Thamaraparani, Palar, etc. Various factors such as encroachments, dumping of solid wastes, bio medical wastes, letting of untreated sewage water, sand mining and damming of rivers and its tributaries, etc. have degraded and upset the whole ecology of the rivers in Tamil Nadu.

With a view to raising debates and awareness about the importance of rejuvenating rivers, India River Week was first organised in 2014 in New Delhi by a consortium of institutions comprising WWF-India, SANDRP, Toxics Link, INTACH, and PEACE Institute. Its second meeting was held in 2016 in New Delhi. After seeing the tremendous success of this initiative, it was decided to conduct the Tamil Nadu River Week on the same the theme. DHAN Foundation, Madurai intends to undertake this initiative jointly with few potential consortium partners. The foundation which has experience on the theme owing to their earlier meritorious works hereby announced the first Tamil Nadu River Week 2017 at Madurai on 27-28 June 2017 on the following broader theme namely.

'River as Ecosystem'

Scope, Challenges, and Pathways to Restore River Ecosystems

he Tamil Nadu River Week, the first of its kind, was organised at the Tata-Dhan Academy, T. Malaipatti village near Vikramangalam during 4-5 July 2017 with the objective of assessing the current status and extent of damages in the rivers of Tamil Nadu. The main objective of the Tamil Nadu River Week is to open a multistakeholder dialogue about Tamil Nadu rivers, its status, challenges, and pathways to restore river as ecosystems. Different experts, technocrats, agriculturists, and student communities actively participated in this two-day event.

A. Gurunathan, Director, Tata Dhan Academy (TDA) welcomed the guests, farmers, students, practitioners and various other experts who eagerly participated in the event. He told the audience that the Water Knowledge Centre convenes this event to open a multi-stakeholder dialogue for assessing the current status and extent of damages in the rivers of Tamil Nadu and determine the indicators for defining a healthy river ecosystem.

M. P. Vasimalai, Executive Director, DHAN Foundation delivered a Special Address. Rivers and people are interconnected in various aspects. He shared that DHAN Foundation has been working for the last 25 years in the water sector. In the initial years, the approach involved renovation of individual tanks; over the period it has enhanced into renovation of a chain of tanks and then it has focused on sub-basin level. Now, the foundation is focusing on restoration of tanks with a basin approach. He said that the present status of rivers is degrading very fast and it is high time to adopt necessary remedial steps through collective action involving all the stakeholders. These initiatives will have a greater impact and success.

Madurai District Collector, K. VeeraRaghava Rao, IAS inaugurated the event on 4 July 2017 and stressed the importance of considering the river as an ecosystem. Water scarcity is increasing day by day and it is important for all of us to protect and conserve the river ecosystems. The natural resource which has been existing for over thousand years will be gone if the present condition persists. He also shared that how he and the corporation commissioner are monitoring the status of Periyar and Vaigai water credit and the drinking water status of Madurai. He stressed the importance of individual responsibility towards environment protection. There are two types of pollution: institutional and individual. Institution pollution can be controlled by the government but curbing individual pollution demands involvement of the individuals. He requested everyone to contribute in three ways “Plant and grow more trees, Minimize and dispose of solid waste safely including non-bio degradable wastes. Do not waste precious natural resources”. He also requested everyone to undertake joint action to protect and save our water bodies not for us but for our next generation.

Key Recommendations

After two days of deliberations, the participants had a detailed discussion and came out with the following key recommendations.

1. The growing menace of declining river health has to be seriously looked into by the government, citizens and other stakeholders. It is a collective responsibility as well as individual responsibility to protect rivers from dying.
2. The river is the lifeline of the society and hence the destruction of biodiversity and ecology of the originating sites of river should be immediately stopped.
3. Cauvery Management Board and Cauvery water regulation committee should be constituted by the Government of India immediately. 4. River basin based river management board/authority/ sabai by involving farmers, women and all related government and private institutions should be constituted and proper training and awareness about the health status of the river need to be created in order to preserve the river ecosystem without further deterioration.
4. All encroachments in the flood plains of the rivers must be evicted. In the flood plains, river pollution due to discharge of liquid waste and dumping of solid waste must strictly be stopped by the joint and coordinated work of state pollution control boards, civic bodies as well as elected representatives of respective constituencies.
5. Greening national accounts concept based studies and research should be encouraged on the rivers which are extensively damaged, namely, Chennai Rivers Palar, South Pennaiyar, Cauvery, Noyal, and Amaravathi, Vaigai, and Thamirabarani.
6. Current river status can be broadly demarcated in three colour codes such as blue for a ‘Healthy’ state; Pink for a ‘Threatened’ state and Red for a ‘Sick’ (compromised, critical, destroyed) state.
7. Nearly 12 broad indicators were identified to assess the health of the rivers.
8. Tanks and other water bodies in the river system should also be integrated into the revival plan of the river ecosystems.
9. Village and Panchayat level rain gauge installation and data dissemination to the farmers free of cost could indeed address uncertainties faced by the farmers.

Paper Presentation

Three lead papers and twelve technical papers were presented in the forum focusing on various rivers of Tamil Nadu, associated problems, challenges, and the way forward by various experts and academicians in the water sector.