Online Ideation Workshop
Yamuna Manthan: More Water in River Yamuna
Date: 23rd September 2023 (Saturday)
Time: 11am – 12.30pm | Platform: Zoom
MAS Council for Water and River (MCWR) is organising an ‘Ideation Workshop’ around the possibility of bringing in more water in River Yamuna. It shares the desire of millions that more and clean water in River Yamuna could lead to a better and healthy life for the human settlements and habitats along the Yamuna River.
The workshop will invite ideas on interrelated themes like:
- Dredging/digging Yamuna River from Hathikund to Etawah, to bring more water in Yamuna River
The organiser of workshop understands that such an activity would have environmental impact. There would be herculean task of managing sediments and silts dredged out from the river. The entire project would have cost associated with setting up infrastructure to move the silts and sediments. There would be need to understand the regulatory and legal issues to undertake this work. An important and element would be engaging the community and stakeholders.
The Ideation Workshop
It is proposed that 8-10 experts, researchers and enthusiasts having expertise or interest in Yamuna River will ideate on the technical feasibility of dredging/digging Yamuna River.
Ideation Workshop Participants:
- Maj. Gen. RC Padhi (Retd.), Former Additional Surveyor General of India
- Dr. R Gopichandran – NTPC School Of Business
- Prof Zulfequar Ahmad, Civil Engg Dept, IIT Rorkee
- Prof Elango Lakshmanan, Visiting Faculty Full Time, IIT Madras
- Pushkar Priyadarshi, Chief Technical Officer, LT IDPL IndvIT Services Limited
- Dr. Sutapa Pati, Academic Dean, School of Sustainability, XIM University
- Sanjeev Roy,Expert in Higher Education Policy, Partnership & Outreach: EU, UK & India
- Maneesh Prasad, Founder & CEO, Telematics Wire
Background to the Ideation Workshop
River Yamuna suffers on two major counts–heavy pollution and low water flow/eflow. The first problem has received a lot of visibility and attention. There are many functional sewage treatment plants and more are being setup for treating waste water flowing into River Yamuna. Efforts are also being made to manage wastewater from unplanned settlements on river banks before it flows into the river. However, reduced water/e-flow or the lack of water, arising primarily from the diversion of water for agriculture in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, has not received the desired attention or even discussion as a theme. This diversion, as we know, cannot be stopped as a large part of crop growing area and habitation depends on the Yamuna water.
In one of the earlier community workshops, organised by MCWR, the idea of dredging the river was mooted. It was suggested that if River Yamuna is dredged little deep (around 25 to 50 Mts) from Hathnikund to Delhi, a stretch of Yamuna where the river has officially been declared ‘dead’, it could become a ‘Lake River’ with abundant and sustained water availability.
About MCWR
www.mcwr.org
MCWR is an evolving collective which is currently working towards bringing together individuals, professionals, organizations, and societies working in the field of preservation, conservation, rejuvenation, revival, management and maintenance of rivers and water bodies.