Chamoli disaster not linked to Char Dham project: Govt to SC
NEW DELHI/DEHRADUN: The Union government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that this month’s devastating flash floods in Chamoli had no link with the ongoing Char Dham road expansion project, dismissing a connection between the two made by the head of a high-powered committee (HPC) in a letter to the apex court last week.
The committee was formed by the Supreme Court to examine the environmental damage resulting from the project, which aims to link the four Hindu pilgrimage centres of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. The road will also serve as an important route for the movement of defence equipment and troops by the Indian military.
The chairman of the HPC, Ravi Chopra, in a letter on February 13, suggested to the top court that the glacier breach in Uttarakhand on February 7 that resulted in the flash floods was linked to the Char Dham and other projects that could damaging the region’s frag
ile ecology.
At least fifty-eight people have died in the flash floods, and 146 are still missing as rescue operations continue in the area.
“The recent disaster in the Rishiganga valley is located in the region north of the main central thrust (MCT), which is highly prone to landslides, flash floods, and earthquake. A section of the defence road to the Indo-china border and a bridge across the Rishiganga river on that road have
been swept away, lending credence to our argument for disaster resilience in the region. Vulnerability and disaster proneness of this region is bound to increase with extensive disturbances like deforestation, slope cutting, blasting, tunneling, damming of rivers, excessive tourism, etc. The cumulative impact of such activities on the nearby glaciers cannot be ignored,” Chopra wrote.
The letter added that several chronic landslide-prone locations and stretches, where the slope stability is precarious, exist on the three Char Dham highways identified by the Union defence ministry (MOD) as feeder roads. It pointed out that the ministry of road transport and highways (MORTH) data submitted to the HPC identified 161 sensitive locations along 574-km -or one every 3.5km -- on NH-94 from Rishikesh to Uttarkashi, NH-58 from Rishikesh to Mana, and NH-125 from Tanakpur to Pithoragarh.
The Centre received Chopra’s letter on Tuesday. On Wednesday, when the Supreme Court took up the Char Dham road project matter on a petition filed by the Citizens for Green Doon, a non-government organisation, attorney general KK Venugopal appeared for the defence ministry and sought time to file a response to the HPC chairman’s letter. He, however, said the contention made in the latter was not factual. “Yesterday we received the letter by the chairman, HPC, which he has written on his own behalf. These are unwarranted comments not based on facts. We would like to reply to it in two weeks,” Venugopal said. The bench of justices
RF Nariman, Hemant Gupta and BR Gavai adjourned the matter for two weeks at his request.
The government and the HPC chairman have been at odds over the project for several months.
Chopra refused to go with the majority view and wrote a separate report along with two other members when, on December 31, 2020, the HPC gave its approval for the expansion of the Chard Dham project roads. The MOD has asked for these roads to have a doublelane carriageway width of 7 metres (or 7.5 metres in case there is a raised kerb) to facilitate the movement of heavy vehicles carrying troops, self-propelled artillery, and other heavy machinery by the Indian Army.
The Court had asked the HPC to examine this request since the earlier prescribed width according to a MORTH notification was 5.5 metres. In his letter to the top court last week, Chopra said if the 2014 recommendation of an expert body (EB) -- chaired by him following the floods in Uttarakhand in 2013, when 3,075 people had died in the mountainous state by the official count, the Chamoli tragedy could have been averted.