SJVN shelves plan to construct country’s ‘longest’ tunnel in HP

SHIMLA: In wake of threat posed to aquatic life in turbulent Sutlej, country’s biggest power producer Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) has redesigned its upcoming 764 MW Luhri hydropower project in Himachal Pradesh.

The public sector unit (PSU) has reworked on plans for the hydroelectric project after the state government expressed it’s apprehension about design and assessed that the water diversion through the tunnel, as planned earlier, will dry up the river.

The headrace tunnel, which would have bypassed the last 50km flowing stretch of Sutlej river, was planned between Nither in Kullu district and Bindla panchayat in Mandi district. According to experts, the tunnel would have “dried up” the Sutlej on it’s 50km course between village Chaba and Nathan, 80km from main town Shimla. The stretch hosts a rich aquatic life.

“We considered the government’s suggestions and have redesigned the project. The plan to construct the headrace tunnel has been completely dropped,” SJVN chairman and managing director Nand Lal Sharma said. “It would have been the longest tunnel in the country measuring 38.14kms,” he added.

Locals and environment groups for the last five years have vociferously opposed the construction of tunnel, saying it will pose a threat to the ecology.

Last year, Himdhara Collective, a state-based environment group, had raised objections to the project on the last free-flowing stretch of Sutlej river in Himachal. They had sent a memorandum to an expert committee of Ministry of Environment and Forestry demanding cumulative impact assessment for every project on the Sutlej basin.

The World Bank in 2014 had also dropped it’s plans to fund the project. Though the World Bank had not specified any reason for the move, its decision follows an inspection carried out by the United States Agency for International Development team which visited India and reviewed the environmental and social impacts of the project to be developed by SJVN.

Locals and NGO had alleged that the environmental impact assessment of project, carried out by the Centre for Inter-Disciplinary Studies of Mountain and Hill Environment, was flawed and the public hearing was more of a charade. “Instead of one project, the government has now proposed three more projects,” they alleged.