A hydro onslaught the Himalayas cannot take

There is rock solid scientific evidence to demand the cancellation of many upcoming and approved hydel projects

In normal circumstances, when a mistake is understood and suffered, one tends to learn from it and not repeat it. Unfortunately, this does not hold true in the case of the policymakers who are bent upon permitting projects and large-scale infrastructure in the already fragile and vulnerable Ganga-Himalayan basin. Recurrent disasters in the last decade in the State of Uttarakhand have been studied and analysed. And in every disaster, the increasing anthropogenic pressure in this area has been found to be a direct or an indirect contributor. The most recent example is the Rishi-Ganga valley disaster, in February this year which claimed over 200 lives as the river turned into a flood carrying a heavy load of silt and debris and demolishing hydropower projects along its course. While science and logic tell us to press on with conservation and protection in these sensitive areas, our Government has decided to go in the dangerous and opposite direction. The affidavit filed recently by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC in an ongoing matter in the Supreme Court of India has recommended the construction of seven partially constructed hydroelectric projects in the Uttarakhand Himalaya. This essentially goes against the core mandate of the Ministry — which is to conserve the country’s natural environment — and one of the prominent electoral promises of the Government, the rejuvenation of one of the country’s major rivers, the Ganga. After the Kedarnath tragedy of 2013, in suo motu cognisance by the Supreme Court, an expert body (EB-I) was constituted to investigate whether the “mushrooming of hydro-power projects” in the State of Uttarakhand was linked to the disaster. In its findings, EB-I said there was a “direct and indirect impact” of these dams in aggravating the disaster. Paving the way for the projects, the Ministry formed committee after committee until it got approval for these projects with some design changes.