Sheonath River: A river in corporate custody

'Living entity' in Chhattisgarh was sold to a private company

Even as river has been granted “human rights” with its declaration as “living entity” by the Uttarakhand court of law, Sheonath River in Chhattisgarh has been in “captivity” of a corporate house for the last two decades.

The erstwhile undivided Madhya Pradesh government in October 1998 inked a deal and sold a 23-km stretch of the Sheonath River to Radius Water Limited (RWL). This was country’s first experiment with privatisation of rivers that was widely criticised for its ecological and social damages.

According to the deal, RWL was given a concession to build a barrage across Sheonath for supplying up to 40