Review the Char Dham project

Don’t push through an environmentally unsound road project in the name of national security

Aspate of cloudburst-type events and heavy rainfall in Uttarakhand since May 3 — the latest one happened on May 11 in Tehri Garhwal district — once again highlights the vulnerability of the region and the dangers of continuing with the Char Dham project. The cloudburst events have caused extensive damage to the route. And environmentalists and geologists have warned that any further hill-cutting in the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons to widen the existing highway will aggravate risks of landslides and other disasters. More rain is expected over the western Himalayan region. Scientists have also warned that the series of cloudbursts may have happened because March, April and May have been warmer than normal, a plausible impact of the climate crisis.

Yet, the Centre seems to be in a hurry to work on the road-widening project, citing “national security” as a compelling reason, even though the road has been motorable since 1962 and only three of the five roads are “feeder roads” to the border and not border roads. Hearing the road-widening case, the Supreme Court (SC) in September, 2020, directed that the width of the road be 5.5 metres, based on the 2018 notification issued by the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) and the minority report of a 26-member High Powered Committee. The ministry of defence filed a separate application in November, 2020, asking the court to review its order and allow it to increase the road width to seven metres. Later, MORTH partially amended its notification for three feeder routes of the project, and allowed the road width to be 10 metres. The case is due to be heard next week by SC’S vacation bench. Environmentalists have demanded that the “intricate and complex” case should be heard by a regular bench and not a vacation bench since there’s no urgency in the matter.

From the very start, the Char Dham project has bypassed several legal requirements (including the mandatory environmental impact assessment); there have been several flip-flops by the ministries involved, and warnings by several green activists, scientists and geologists have gone unheeded. The Himalayas are a fragile region. The government must rethink and consider all perspectives before pushing though the 900-km all-weather project in the name of national security.