Spotlight falls on risks posed by power projects
NEW DELHI: Although the Supreme Court took suo motu (on its own motion) cognizance of the 2013 Kedarnath cloudburst and flooding that killed over 5,000 people and an expert committee warned as early as in 2014 that hydroelectric projects could pose a disaster risk to the state, Uttarakhand is still pursuing the construction of hydroelectric projects and dams.
This is obvious from an affidavit filed in the SC by the Uttarakhand government on August 28, 2020 in response to an appeal by developers of a hydroelectric project on the Alaknanda river to resume operations following a stay imposed on all hydroelectric projects in the state.
The affidavit, seen by HT, says: “…the Uttarakhand government has been facing acute power shortage in recent times and has been forced to purchase electricity amounting to ₹1,000 crore annually, casting an additional burden on the finances of the hilly state...”
The Uttarakhand government and the Union environment ministry still don’t have a policy on such projects.
The SC, in a 2013 order, ruled no new hydroelectrical power projects should be set up in the state. In all, 69 projects were envisaged, and 24 were granted environmental clearance. The SC sought a scientific assessment of the cumulative impact of hydropower plants in the state.
Following the SC order, a committee headed by Ravi Chopra, director of the People’s Science Institute, submitted a detailed report which warned that a glacial retreat in the state, coupled with structures built for hydroelectricity generation and dams, could lead to large-scale disasters downstream.
The Union environment ministry, in its December 17, 2014 affidavit, also took note of the findings of the Chopra commit-glacial tee report. The affidavit, seen by HT, acknowledged that upper reaches of the state above 2,200 metres were extremely prone to landslides and were located in seismic zones.
The ministry sought to study the seismological vulnerability, cloudbursts caused by climate change and advise on the location, size and design of future hydroelectric projects.
“We had said in our report that the region above 2,000 metres in Uttarakhand in the valleys is not suited for hydroelectric projects .... There appears to have been an avalanche and a lake outburst in the Rishi Ganga valley and debris smashed into the Tapovan dam,” Chopra said on Sunday after the massive inundation in Uttarakhand’s Rishi Ganga valley caused by a suspected glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF).
But the environment ministry did not take on board the Chopra committee’s recommendations in their entirety. After six of 24 hydroelectric projects were impleaded in the matter of revoking a stay on hydroelectric plants, the SC suggested setting up another panel to consider the case of the projects.
A committee headed by Vinod Tare of IIT, Kanpur, was set up to review the six projects; the panel submitted a report that the six projects shouldn’t be allowed. The environment ministry recommended setting up another committee to look into the issue, this time headed by BP Das, who used to be a member of an expert appraisal committee that cleared some of the six projects in his tenure. The panel recommended some hydropower projects with design modifications.
“The Ravi Chopra committee report has been in limbo since then because the environment ministry kept forming committees to ensure the six hydropower projects get to resume work. Not just dams and hydroelectric projects, now extensive slope cutting and deforestation have added to extreme vulnerability of Uttarakhand to climate change impacts,” said Mallika Bhanot of Ganga Ahvaan.
HT tried reaching RP Gupta, secretary of environment ministry, for a comment on the policy on dams and hydropower in Uttarakhand, but was unable to contact him till late on Sunday.