Jojari River UPSC

Jojari River Pollution: SC Proposes a Task Force

In the news: The Supreme Court, in a suo motu proceeding (originally initiated in September 2025 after reports of extensive pollution), proposed constituting a task force headed by the Rajasthan Chief Secretary to draw up a plan preventing industrial waste from being discharged into the Jojari river — a river the Court noted is a “lifeline for nearly two million people.” The Bench (Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta) stated firmly that it would not permit “any attempt to kill it.”

The case covers extensive pollution of the Jojari, Bandi, and Luni rivers in the Jodhpur, Pali, and Balotra districts of Rajasthan respectively.

(Page 4, The Hindu, 5 August 2026)

River Profile: Jojari River

• A seasonal (non-perennial) river of Rajasthan, rising in the hills near Jodhpur.
• Flows through Jodhpur, Pali, and Balotra districts before eventually merging with the Luni River, which itself is Rajasthan’s principal inland-draining (endorheic) river system, terminating in the Rann of Kutch rather than the sea.
• The river has become a case study in industrial river pollution in India — Jodhpur’s textile dyeing, printing, and handicraft units (and downstream Balotra’s textile-processing units) have historically discharged untreated effluents into the Jojari–Luni system, severely degrading water quality and affecting groundwater used by lakhs of people and farmland along the course.
• This makes it a recurring example for GS-III questions on river pollution, industrial effluent regulation, and judicial environmental governance (alongside better-known cases like the Ganga Action Plan or the Yamuna pollution litigation).