The NHRC has sought an Action taken Report from the Union Ministry of Water Resources on the issue of safety of dams across India including Hirakud, Hadgad, and several other dams in Odisha.
Acting on a petition filed by human rights lawyer Radhakanta Tripathy, the NHRC directed the ministry to examine the matter and submit the report expeditiously within a period of 15 days treating the matter as urgent.
The petition drew the attention of the top rights panel on the potential danger to the people living on the river banks in the country from the dams constructed on the rivers.
Of the 5,745 large dams in the country, 5,334 are operational. Among these operational embankments, 234 have outlived their lifespan of 100 years due to which the people living in the catchment area and beside the rivers are prone to disasters in India, it stated.
Citing the provisions of the Dam Safety Act enacted in 2021 , the petitioner urged the rights body to issue a notice to the Ministry of Water Resources, the National Committee on Dam Safety, and the chief secretaries of all states to conduct a comprehensive survey of Dams and submit reports of safety measures.
Dams have already altered the local ecology, societies, economies, and even micro-climatic conditions. Decommissioning them will not be easy as this might create new conflict zones. Dam authorities have to be more transparent and vigilant. Flood plain zoning of rivers needs to be done on war footing if we are to manage floods and minimize losses, the petition pointed out.
India, the third-largest owner of large dams in the world, urgently needs a transparent, accountable and participatory dam safety mechanism. The owners of specified dams are also mandated to compile all technical documentations concerning hydrology, dam foundation, structural engineering of dam, watershed upstream of dam, and nature or use of land downstream of dam along with information on all resources or facilities of economic, logistic or environmental importance which are likely to be affected due to dam failure, the petition argued.
The petitioner sought for a transparent, accountable and participatory dam safety mechanism in India to prevent disasters.
The Dam Safety Act 2021 provides for four tiers of institutional mechanism: establishment of National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) and National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) at Centre level and establishment of State Committee on Dam Safety and the State Dam Safety Organization at State level.
As per Section 31 of the Dam Safety Act 2021, every owner of a specified dam has been mandated to undertake annually, through their dam safety unit, a pre-monsoon and post- monsoon inspection in respect of each specified dam and to forward the inspection report to the concerned State Dam Safety Organization, the petition concluded.