Dam Safety Act, 2021: One Law for Every Dam

In one meeting, officials reviewed four dam failures from four states. Sikkim, Chhattisgarh and Punjab were among them. Until 2021, India had no single national law on dam safety at all. Each state set its own rules, or none. The Dam Safety Act, 2021 changed that. It took almost 40 years to arrive.

1Chapter 1: India’s First Standalone Dam Law

Must Know

Enactment

• The Dam Safety Act, 2021 is India’s first standalone central law on dam safety.
• It got Presidential assent on 13 December 2021.
• It came into force on 30 December 2021.
• The two dates differ. Exams like to test that.

Before the Act

• India had no uniform statutory framework for dam safety.
• Practice varied from state to state.
• It rested only on voluntary technical guidelines.
• A Parliamentary Standing Committee first recommended a unified law in 1982.
• Pressure grew with the long Mullaperiyar dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• That dispute is about the safety of a dam built in 1895.

What counts as a “specified dam”

• The Act applies to “specified dams”.
• These are dams more than 15 metres tall.
• Dams of 10 to 15 metres also count if they meet extra design and structural conditions.
• This is a deliberately narrow legal category.
• Not every structure that holds back water is covered.
• Height and design thresholds decide who must obey the Act.

Four bodies, two levels

• The National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) sets national policy and standards.
• The Chairman of the Central Water Commission chairs the NCDS.
• It includes central ministries, states and independent experts.
• The National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) carries out that policy.
• The NDSA also resolves inter-state disputes over a shared dam.
• An officer not below Additional Secretary rank heads the NDSA.
• Each state sets up a State Committee on Dam Safety (SCDS).
• Each state also sets up a State Dam Safety Organisation (SDSO).
• The SDSO does the day-to-day surveillance and inspection.
• The NCDS and NDSA were constituted by Gazette notification on 17 February 2022.

Penalties

• General violations can draw up to one year in prison.
• If obstruction or non-compliance causes loss of life, the term can reach two years.

2Chapter 2: Numbers and Owner Duties

Good to Know

The 2025 register

• The National Register of Specified Dams lists 6,545 operational specified dams.
• 83 more are under construction.
• 1,681 of the operating dams are already more than 50 years old.
• Together they hold 253.95 billion cubic metres of live storage.

What every owner must do

• Prepare an Emergency Action Plan.
• Complete a Comprehensive Dam Safety Evaluation.
• Complete a Risk Assessment study.
• States have asked owners to finish these by December 2026.

Policy at the top, inspection at the bottom

• The four-tier structure splits policy from inspection.
• National bodies decide standards.
• State bodies actually watch the dams.
• The gap between the 1982 call and the 2021 Act shows how slowly reform can move, even for a known risk.

3Chapter 3: The Mullaperiyar Dispute

Great to Know

A lease for 999 years

• The Mullaperiyar Dam sits inside Kerala.
• Tamil Nadu operates it under an 1886 lease signed for 999 years, granted by the British.
• The dam itself was built in 1895.
• It forms the lake around which the Periyar Tiger Reserve was later built.
• Read Periyar National Park: Kerala’s Sanctuary Built Around a British-Era Dam.

136 feet or 142 feet?

• Kerala says the dam is safe only if its water level stays capped at 136 feet.
• Tamil Nadu depends on the reservoir for irrigation in five districts.
• It wants the level raised to 142 feet.
• The Supreme Court sided with Tamil Nadu in 2014.
• Kerala then passed its own law to keep the 136-foot cap anyway.
• The dispute is still unresolved.

4Chapter 4: Current Affairs, July 2026

Great to Know

The 12th NCDS meeting

• The NCDS held its 12th meeting in New Delhi on 17 July 2026.
• The Chairman of the Central Water Commission chaired it.
• Officials presented recent failures: Teesta Stage-III in Sikkim.
• Luti Tank and Rajadera in Chhattisgarh.
• And the Madhopur barrage in Punjab.
• The Committee agreed to draft a new regulation on surveillance and security of specified dams, citing emerging threats.
• States were asked to speed up mandatory evaluations, action plans and risk studies, all due by December 2026.
• The Committee discussed nominating working engineers for postgraduate dam-safety courses at IIT Roorkee and IISc Bengaluru.
• It also explored NIT Surat, NIT Calicut, NIT Nagpur, IIT Guwahati and NIT Shillong for capacity-building.
• Source: PIB, 17 July 2026.
• Read Chhattisgarh State Profile and Dam Failures in India: Causes and Catastrophic Consequences.

Link to disaster preparedness

• Dam safety is part of wider disaster preparedness.
• Read Landslides, Cyclones and Disaster-Monitoring Technology.

5Chapter 5: Exam Traps

Great to Know

Easy swaps

• NCDS and NDSA are easy to swap. NCDS = policy. NDSA = implementation and inter-state disputes.
• Assent was 13 December 2021. The Act came into force on 30 December 2021.
• A specified dam is taller than 15 m, or 10–15 m with extra conditions.
• Every state needs an SCDS and an SDSO.

Quick Q&A

• Assent date? 13 Dec 2021.
• Specified dam height? Over 15 m (or 10–15 m with conditions).
• Who sets policy? NCDS.
• Who implements? NDSA.
• Max penalty? 2 years if lives lost.