Ramsar Sites in India Reach 103 With Sukhna and Sauj Jheel

India's list of Wetlands of International Importance now runs to 103 Ramsar Sites. The figure was reached on 15 October 2026, when Sukhna Wetland in Chandigarh and Sauj Jheel in Uttar Pradesh were added. The count stood at 26 in 2014, so the network is close to four times its earlier size. The sites together spread over more than 13.87 lakh hectares in 28 States and Union Territories, which puts India first in Asia and third among all countries by number of sites.

What makes a wetland a Ramsar Site

A wetland earns the label when it is listed under the Convention on Wetlands, a treaty between governments that was agreed at the Iranian town of Ramsar on 2 February 1971 and took effect in 1975. The treaty today has 172 Contracting Parties and more than 2,536 listed sites around the world. India came on board on 1 February 1982. A wetland has to satisfy at least one of nine tests, which are grouped under wetland type and biological diversity; holding 20,000 waterbirds in a normal year is one of them. The proposal starts with the State or Union Territory, after which the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change forwards it to the Ramsar Secretariat.

The two newest sites

Sukhna Wetland is a rain-fed reservoir built in 1958 below the Shivalik hills. Threatened birds and reptiles such as the Pallas's fish eagle, the common pochard and the black pond turtle live there, and migrants on the Central Asian Flyway use it to feed and to spend the winter. Sauj Jheel is a shallow floodplain lake in the Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh that draws over 30,000 waterbirds in a normal year and gives nesting and feeding ground to the sarus crane and the greater spotted eagle.

The spread of the network

Chilika Lake in Odisha and Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan were the first pair to be named, on 1 October 1981. Chilika was later taken off the Montreux Record, the register of listed wetlands whose ecological character is changing for the worse, in 2002, and the Chilika Development Authority went on to win the Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award. Surha Tal in Uttar Pradesh had been the 100th site, in June 2026, and Glaw Lake in Arunachal Pradesh the 101st, in August.

Laws and schemes behind the sites

The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, bar encroachment, waste dumping and untreated effluent, and set up wetland authorities in the States. Science and money come through the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems, whose revised guidelines were issued in 2024. Amrit Dharohar pays for species inventories and wetland carbon work, Mission Sahbhagita runs the Save Wetlands Campaign, and MISHTI aims at mangrove repair across 540 square kilometres. Indore and Udaipur became the first Indian cities with Ramsar Wetland City accreditation in 2025.