India Added Sukhna Wetland and Sauj Jheel to Its Ramsar List on 15 October 2026, Taking the Count of Wetlands of International Importance to 103 From 99 in April

India’s list of Ramsar sites, wetlands recognised under a treaty dating from 1971, reached 103 on 15 October 2026. The Union Environment Minister announced that day that Sukhna Wetland in Chandigarh and Sauj Jheel in Uttar Pradesh had been added, according to a release the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s press office, posted at 8:41 pm.

Sukhna covers 199.51 hectares at the edge of Chandigarh, and Sauj Jheel covers 40.76 hectares in Mainpuri district. Both figures come from the Ramsar Information Sheets, which the Ramsar Sites Information Service published on 15 October. Together the two sites add 240.27 hectares to the list.

Four additions in 176 days

The count stood at 99 on 22 April 2026, when a PIB release announced Shekha Jheel Bird Sanctuary in Aligarh as the 99th site. The Prime Minister welcomed the 100th, the Jai Prakash Narayan Bird Sanctuary (Surha Tal) in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, on 5 June, PIB reported.

Glaw Lake became the 101st on 3 August and is Arunachal Pradesh’s first. It lies inside the Kamlang Tiger Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, and the minister said more than 150 tree species and 49 orchid species have been recorded within the site and its catchment. In that release he put the national figure at “26 Ramsar Sites in 2014 to 101 today”. Sukhna and Sauj Jheel took it from 101 to 103.

Sukhna, a reservoir built in 1958

The Ramsar Information Sheet describes Sukhna as a human-made, rainfed freshwater wetland in the foothills of the Shivalik Range. It came into being in 1958, when a rock-fill earthen dam 12.8 metres high was built across a seasonal stream, the Sukhna rivulet. The sheet places it in the north-east corner of the city that our piece on the Capitol Complex and Chandigarh’s plan describes, with elevations between about 304 and 365 metres.

On the sheet’s figures, an average of 29 waterbird species turn up in the winter waterbird census, and 16 species breed at the lake. Common pochard, a duck the sheet lists as vulnerable, are recorded at around 500 on average in the latest survey, held in February 2026. The sheet counts six endangered species, among them Pallas’s fish eagle and the black pond turtle, and three vulnerable ones.

It rests the listing on three of the convention’s nine criteria: 2 (rare species), 3 (biological diversity) and 4 (support at critical stages of a life cycle or in adverse conditions). Its compiler is the Department of Forests and Wildlife of the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

How the Chandigarh application moved

The Union environment ministry had declared Sukhna a national wetland in 1988, the Tribune reported, and the Chandigarh administration declared it a wetland under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, in 2020, according to ThePrint. On 19 September 2025 the Union Territory’s State Wetland Authority, chaired by the Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator, approved the Ramsar proposal at its fourth meeting.

By 16 February 2026 the Union ministry had cleared the proposal and the Ministry of External Affairs had endorsed it, the Tribune said, with a formal application due to go to the Ramsar Secretariat the following week. The paper listed international funding and technical support among the benefits officials expected.

The Ramsar sheet gives 16 March 2026 as Sukhna’s designation date and 18 June 2026 as Sauj Jheel’s. The PIB release carries the minister’s announcement of 15 October and does not say what the earlier dates refer to.

Sauj Jheel and its 35,000 waterbirds

Sauj Jheel is a shallow lake surrounded by farmland and settlements in the floodplain of the Ganga, fed mainly by farm runoff and rain, according to its sheet. It lies near the Saman Bird Sanctuary, which was listed in December 2019, covers 526.3 hectares and regularly supports more than 50,000 waterbirds. ThePrint noted that the new listing gives Mainpuri district two Ramsar sites.

The Uttar Pradesh Forest Department’s census counted 34,154 waterbirds at Sauj Jheel in 2021, 35,206 in 2022 and 35,349 in 2023, an average of 34,903. The sheet records 43 waterbird species, 19 fish species and seven reptile species. It names great white pelican, greylag goose, bar-headed goose and ruddy shelduck as significant winter visitors, and it lists sarus crane and greater spotted eagle among five globally threatened species there.

Two of the threatened species are turtles: the spotted pond turtle and the Indian peacock softshell turtle, both listed as endangered. The sheet also says BirdLife International has identified the lake as an Important Bird Area, site IN-UP-20, on its criteria for threatened species and for more than 20,000 waterbirds. The listing cites criteria 2, 3, 4 and 5, the last of which is a count above 20,000 waterbirds.

What the management plans cover

Sukhna’s sheet names silt flowing in from the catchment and the spread of invasive plants as the main management challenges. It says soil and moisture conservation works have significantly reduced the silt load, and that weeds are removed periodically. ThePrint reported that the lake has lost more than 50 per cent of its water-holding capacity over recent decades to silting and erosion, and that the Chandigarh engineering department de-silted it in June 2026.

The Tribune reported in September 2025 that the Authority had also approved a five-year Integrated Management Plan costing Rs 22.5 crore, prepared by the Forest Department with WWF and other departments. It covers water levels, aquatic life, cleanliness around the lake, tourist facilities and more solar-powered boats, and it went to the Union ministry for funding under the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems.

At Sauj Jheel the sheet names grazing and fishing by local people as the main threat. The Mainpuri Social Forestry Division plans to ban entry, grazing and fishing in critical nesting areas, plant thorny species around the lake to keep cattle out, and post cattle guards called Suraksha Shramik. Fishing would be banned in the monsoon and winter seasons, and fine-mesh nets would be prohibited.

ThePrint’s report of 16 October quoted KBS Sidhu, a former Punjab Special Chief Secretary, on what the Sukhna listing will be measured by: “whether Sukhna’s water, birds and catchment are better protected ten years from now.”