ITANAGAR, Mar 14: The Chief Minister’s reported comment on dams and anti-dam protesters has taken the center-stage with the Arunachal Citizens Right (ACR) alleging that the CM is being influenced by what it called, powerful hydro-power developers’ lobby in the country.
Welcoming Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu’s clarification that most of the hydro-projects in the State would be Run-of-the-River projects, ACR, however, observed that he is being misled by mis-interpretation and mis-information propagated by the very powerful corporate lobby, both public and private.
Citing several projects in the states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and West Bengal, the NGO claimed that these Run-of-the-River projects are not as benign as they are projected by the country’s dam lobby. It said that these projects have reservoirs and pondage to generate power during the lean season and peak demand time. Some of these reservoirs, as in the case of Teesta project and projects in Himachal Pradesh,  considered as run-of-the river projects extend to more than 8 to 12 kms.
ACR further claimed that these projects not only block the river flow for their reservoirs but divert a large portion of the river flow through long tunnels, which impact on the aquatic life, aquatic biodiversity and use of river water for domestic use of the local community downstream as exemplified by the Ranganadi hydro-project in Lower Subansiri district. Though, the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Ministry of Environment & Forests, in its environment clearance letters, does mention the minimum river flow that the projects should ensure throughout the year, all such projects to date have violated the regime of minimum river flow leading to irreversible impact on the aquatic species of the rivers like Teesta and Ranganadi, it claimed.
“On the question of the Run-of-the River hydro projects over Teesta in Sikkim, the Expert Appraisal Committee has, in fact, in their meetings voiced dilemma over the river Teesta going underground and flowing mostly through tunnels over a stretch of 100 kms,” ACR claimed while pointing that diversion tunnels as long as 18 kms, when drilled through geologically unstable hills of the eastern Himalayas have resulted in landslides and landslips, drying of water resources around the project area resulting in huge impact over agriculture, orchards and drinking water table. It said that in Teesta V project, several houses located along the tunnels developed cracks and were never compensated or repaired since the villages did not fall under the affected category going by the EIA report. Taking the instances of Teesta V and Teesta III in Sikkim, the rights group alleged that huge amount of muck drilled out of the tunnels, is dumped in the river leading to localized devastations.
“It is also not true that majority of the dams being Run-of the-River projects in Arunchal, will have minimum submergence of forest land,” ACR observed. According to it of the 104 proposed hydro projects in the state, there are at least 25 projects which have generation capacity of 500 MW and more with the Dibang Multipurpose having a generation capacity of 3,000 MW and Etalin having a capacity of 4,000 MW. In these projects, the diversion and submergence of community forest land will be in the range of 1500 ha to over 5,000 ha that is 4,500 acres to more than 12,500 acres.
“Therefore, it is high time that real and factual information is given and communicated to the people of Arunachal Pradesh rather than spreading the propaganda of the hydro project developers,” ACR added.