The government continues to push for dams
Despite several expert committees questioning the role of a large number of dams spread across Uttarakhand, the state government has not slowed its push for more such dams, maintaining that hydropower is an important source of revenue and will bring development to the state.
In terms of the hydropower potential, Uttarakhand is second only to the state of Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India.
According to data from Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (UJVNL), the nodal corporation of the Uttarakhand government for managing hydropower generation at existing power stations and developing new hydro projects, the plan is to develop 450 hydroelectric projects (HEPs) across the state to harness its potential of 27,039 megawatts.
More than 250 of these projects are still on the drawing board, and growing concerns about the effect of dams on biodiversity and riverine ecosystems have not helped their case.
If completed, more than half of the 450 HEPs projects will have an installed capacity of 5 megawatts or more. The majority of them will divert rivers through tunnels to powerhouses downstream.
In its 2014 report, the Chopra committee suggested dropping 23 of these hydropower projects, but the issue is still pending in court.
Experts believe the development of these projects will irreversibly affect the landscape of Uttarakhand.
Pradeep Srivastava, a scientist at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, said the region was disaster-prone and had seen similar disasters since the 1890s, but the magnitude of the damage had increased over time.
“River connectivity has become an important parameter,” he said. “The entire Ganga, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Saraswati plains have been formed due to the interaction between the river systems and mountains. If in between this, such dams are created, it means we are playing with the natural water flow. We will not understand the effect now because these things act beyond human time scales.”
Pradeep Srivastava, a scientist at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, talks about the urgent need for mountain-centric infrastructure in Uttarakhand.
Local villagers, too, fear another disaster.
“We saw what happened in 2013 and all those mistakes are being repeated again,” said Sushila Devi, an activist from a village near Banswara in Uttarakhand. “The dam that is being built near our village has a huge tunnel inside the fragile mountains. There will be a constant danger to our lives.”
Sushila Devi is actively fighting for the rights of her village near Banswara, against the under-construction hydroelectric project. She’s also one of the petitioners fighting the dumping of muck, through the National Green Tribunal, which ensures the speedy disposal of environmental cases in India.
‘Unrelenting’ pursuit of hydroelectricity
According to a 2015 report by the Comptroller and the Auditor General of India, the “natural terrain conditions combined with climatic/weather conditions and haphazard human intervention resulted in the unprecedented disaster in the Kedar and Mandakini Valleys and in other parts of the state.”
But no lessons seem to have been learned. In 2012, a 100-kilometer (62-mile) stretch of the Bhagirathi River, a tributary of the Ganges, was declared an eco-sensitive zone (ESZ), which meant that no new HEPs were allowed along that stretch.
Since then, the Uttarakhand government has been making efforts to get the Bhagirathi Eco Sensitive Zone notification amended, seeking permission to construct 10 hydropower projects along the river with a total capacity of 82.5 megawatts. The government has argued that they were allotted prior to the issuance of the 2012 notification and were under different stages of development and implementation. The latest plea to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change was made in December 2017.
“The attitude of the Uttarakhand government, the ministers and the bureaucracy, is most disappointing,” said Chopra, who also serves on another expert committee, appointed by the National Green Tribunal, to draft the zonal master plan for the Bhagirathi ESZ. “Despite several admonishments from the courts and the central ministries they simply avoid implementing the notification in its participatory and environmentally friendly manner. It is obvious that the government is in the hands of the vested interests.
“The unrelenting insistence demanding approval for the 10 hydropower projects of the total capacity of 82.5 MW is simply incomprehensible,” he added. “The actual power available to the state will be about 38 MW which is less than 10 percent of the current installed capacity inside the Bhagirathi ESZ. This can be easily made up by more efficient power generation and transmission.”
More than 60 percent of Uttarakhand is covered by forests that are home to about 4,500 plant species. Of these, 116 species are endemic, representing an invaluable genetic resource. Construction of dams requires clearing huge forest areas, which in turn poses a danger to this biodiversity.
A final decision about the amendment of the 2012 Bhagirathi ESZ is yet to be taken.
Meanwhile, even as the impacts of big dams are being debated, India is looking to build the country’s highest dam in Uttarakhand. The 5,040-megawatt Pancheshwar Multipurpose Project is being planned on the Mahakali River, known as the Sarada in India, at a location where the river forms the international boundary between India and Nepal.
This story was first published on July 4, 2018, by Mongabay-India.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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