Throughout history, Indians have stored rainwater for the long dry season, be it in large lake-like ‘tanks’ in the southern peninsula, stepwells in Rajasthan, or small underground storages in Gujarat.
Today, over 6,000 dams play this role, irrigating the land, protecting the people from floods, and meeting India’s soaring demand for power.
Now, however, many of these dams are ageing. Added to that, the erratic nature of present-day precipitation has left them increasingly vulnerable, especially since they were built for the rainfall patterns of an earlier era. Besides, given minimal investment in their maintenance, many of them are unable to perform to their full potential while others have become substantial safety risks.
India has now become one of the world’s first countries to undertake a large-scale dam rehabilitation program. Since 2012, with World Bank support, it has deployed the latest expertise and technology to upgrade 200 of its large dams in one of the largest such programs in the world.
“It’s simple,” explained Debashree Mukherjee, Secretary in the Government of India’s Ministry of Jal Shakti. “It is increasingly difficult to find sites to build iconic structures like the Bhakra Nangal Dam,” referring to one of India’s largest dams and the first to be built in independent India. “So, it’s important to get as much value out of each dam as we can.”