BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that dam safety is not the responsibility of a single department, but shared national obligation demanding coordinated institutional action. He was speaking after inaugurating the International Conference on Dam Safety (ICDS)-2026, jointly organised by Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India and Water Resources Department, Government of Karnataka at JN Tata Auditorium, Indian Institute of Science.
Noting that India has 6,628 specified dams, the CM said Karnataka has 231 specified dams, ranking sixth in the country. “Nearly 70 percent of these (Karnataka) dams are over 25 years old, underscoring the urgent need for systematic safety evaluation, modernisation, and risk-informed operation,” he said.
He highlighted that cyber security and protection against technological sabotage must be treated as core elements of national infrastructure security, as dams become digitally operated. “Critical water infrastructure remains vulnerable to terrorism and strategic disruption, demanding constant vigilance and coordinated intelligence mechanisms,” Siddaramaiah said.
“We face climate-driven hydrological extremes. Seismic vulnerabilities, reservoir sedimentation, and the stresses of aging infrastructure create complex, interlinked risks. Dam safety is no longer a technical afterthought, it is a national security imperative,” he emphasised. He added that climate change, unprecedented floods, prolonged droughts, and unpredictable inflows are redefining design assumptions of the past, while sedimentation, ecological degradation, and reservoir-induced environmental changes threaten long-term storage capacity and river health.
The CM also launched DamChat, a chatbot developed by Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Malaprabha river basin modelling, plan in addition to the atlas which is one of a kind in India and the Jal Shakti Data Management System Portal, on the occasion.