A dam is a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or retards the flow,

often creating a reservoir, lake or impoundment.

“Dam” refers to the reservoir rather than the structure.
Most dams have a section called a spillway or weir over which or through which it is
intended that water will flow either intermittently or continuously.

-Multi-purpose projects were launched after Independence with integrated water

resources management approach
-Multi-purpose projects were thought of as the vehicle that would lead the nation to
development and progress.
-Jawaharlal Nehru proudly proclaimed the dams as the ‘temples of modern India’
-Beacuse it would integrate development of agriculture and the village economy with
rapid industrialisation and growth of the urban economy.
Multi-purpose projects and large dams have come under great scrutiny and opposition
for a variety of reasons:
-Regulating and damming of rivers affect their natural flow causing poor sediment flow
and excessive sedimentation at the bottom of the reservoir, resulting in rockier stream
beds and poorer habitats for the rivers’ aquatic life.
-Dams also fragment rivers making it difficult for aquatic fauna to migrate, especially
for spawning.
-The reservoirs that are created on the floodplains also submerge the existing
vegetation and soil leading to its decomposition over a period of time
Multi-purpose projects and large dams have also been the cause of many new
environmental movements:
-For eg ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ and the ‘Tehri Dam Andolan’ etc.
-Resistance to these projects has primarily been due to the large-scale displacement of
local communities.
-Local people often had to give up their land, livelihood and their meagre access and
control over resources for the greater good of the nation.
-The landowners and large farmers, industrialists and few urban centres are
benefiting from such projects.
Narmada Bachao Andolan
-Also Known as Save Narmada Movement
-Is a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO)
-Mobilised tribal people, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists
against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river in Gujarat.
-Originally focused on the environmental issues related to trees that would be
submerged under the dam water.
-Recently it has re-focused the aim to enable poor citizens, especially the oustees
(displaced people) to get full rehabilitation facilities from the government.
-Sardar Sarovar Dam has been built over the Narmada River in Gujarat.
-This is one of the largest water resource projects of India covering four
states—Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
-The Sardar Sarovar project would meet the requirement of water in drought-prone
and desert areas of Gujarat (9,490 villages and 173 towns) and Rajasthan (124
villages).
-Irrigation has also changed the cropping pattern of many regions with farmers
shifting to water intensive and commercial crops.
-This has great ecological consequences like salinisation of the soil.
-It has transformed the social landscape i.e. increasing the social gap between the
richer landowners and the landless poor.
-The dams did create conflicts between people wanting different uses and benefits
from the same water resources.
-In Gujarat, the Sabarmati-basin farmers were agitated and almost caused a riot over
the higher priority given to water supply in urban areas, particularly during droughts.
-Inter-state water disputes are also becoming common with regard to sharing the
costs and benefits of the multi-purpose project.
-The Krishna-Godavari dispute is due to the objections raised by Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh governments
-It is regarding the diversion of more water at Koyna by the Maharashtra government
for a multipurpose project.
-This would reduce downstream flow in their states with adverse consequences for
agriculture and industry.
-Most of the objections to the projects arose due to their failure to achieve the
purposes for which they were built.
-The dams that were constructed to control floods have triggered floods due to
sedimentation in the reservoir.
-The big dams have mostly been unsuccessful in controlling floods at the time of
excessive rainfall.
-Release of water from dams during heavy rains aggravated the flood situation in
Maharashtra and Gujarat in 2006.
-The floods have not only devastated life and property but also caused extensive soil
erosion.
-Sedimentation also meant that the flood plains were deprived of silt, a natural
fertiliser, further adding on to the problem of land degradation.
-It was also observed that the multi-purpose projects induced earthquakes, caused
water-borne diseases and pests and pollution resulting from excessive use of water.
-The disadvantages and rising resistance against the multipurpose projects, water
harvesting system was a viable alternative, both socio-economically and
environmentally.
-In ancient India, along with the sophisticated hydraulic structures, there existed an
extraordinary tradition of water-harvesting system.
-People had in-depth knowledge of rainfall regimes and soil types and developed wide
ranging techniques to harvest rainwater, groundwater, river water and flood water in
keeping with the local ecological conditions and their water needs.
-In hill and mountainous regions, people built diversion channels like the ‘guls’ or
‘kuls’ of the Western Himalayas for agriculture.
-‘Rooftop rainwater harvesting’ was commonly practised to store drinking water,
particularly in Rajasthan.
-In the flood plains of Bengal, people developed inundation channels to irrigate their
fields.
-In arid and semi-arid regions, agricultural fields were converted into rain fed storage
structures that allowed the water to stand and moisten the soil like the ‘khadins’ in
Jaisalmer and ‘Johads’ in other parts of Rajasthan.
• Rooftop rainwater is collected using a PVC pipe
• Filtered using sand and bricks
• Underground pipe takes water to sump for immediate usage
• Excess water from the sump is taken to the well
• Water from the well recharges the underground
• Take water from the well (later)
-In the semi-arid and arid regions of Rajasthan, particularly in Bikaner, Phalodi and
Barmer, almost all the houses traditionally had underground tanks or tankas for
storing drinking water.
-The tanks could be as large as a big room;
 one household in Phalodi had a tank that was 6.1 metres deep, 4.27 metres long and
2.44 metres wide.
-The tankas were part of the well-developed rooftop rainwater harvesting system and
were built inside the main house or the courtyard.
-They were connected to the sloping roofs of the houses through a pipe.
-Rain falling on the rooftops would travel down the pipe and was stored in these
underground ‘tankas’.
-The first spell of rain was usually not collected as this would clean the roofs and the
pipes. The rainwater from the subsequent showers was then collected.
-A kul leads to a circular village tank from which water is released as and when
required.
-The rainwater can be stored in the tankas till the next rainfall making it an extremely
reliable source of drinking water when all other sources are dried up particularly in
the summers.
-Rainwater (Palar Pani) is considered the purest form of natural water.
-Many houses constructed underground rooms adjoining the ‘tanka’ to beat the
summer heat as it would keep the room cool.
-Today, in western Rajasthan, sadly the practice of rooftop rainwater harvesting is on
the decline as plenty of water is available due to the perennial Indira Gandhi Canal
-In many parts of rural and urban India, rooftop rainwater harvesting is being
successfully adapted to store and conserve water.
-In Gendathur, a remote backward village in Mysuru, Karnataka, villagers have
installed, in their household’s rooftop, rainwater harvesting system to meet their water
needs.
-Nearly 200 households have installed this system and the village has earned the rare
distinction of being rich in rainwater.
-Gendathur receives an annual precipitation of 1,000 mm, and with 80 per cent of
collection efficiency and of about 10 fillings, every house can collect and use about
50,000 litres of water annually. From the 200 houses, the net amount of rainwater
harvested annually amounts to 1,00,000 litres
-Rooftop rainwater harvesting is the most common practice in Shillong, Meghalaya.
-It is interesting because Cherapunjee and Mawsynram situated at a distance of 55
km.
-from Shillong receive the highest rainfall in the world, yet the state capital Shillong
faces acute shortage of water.
-Nearly every household in the city has a rooftop rainwater harvesting structure.
Nearly 15-25 per cent of the total water requirement of the household comes from
rooftop water harvesting.
-Tamil Nadu is the first state in India which has made rooftop rainwater harvesting
structure compulsory to all the houses across the state.
-In Meghalaya, a 200-year-old system of tapping stream and spring water by using
bamboo pipes, is prevalent.
-About 18-20 litres of water enters the bamboo pipe system, gets transported over
hundreds of metres, and finally reduces to 20-80 drops per minute at the site of the
plant.