It is close to a year after the worst ever Himalayan flood disaster that Uttarakhand or possibly the entire Indian Himalayas experienced in June 2013[1]. While there is no doubt that the trigger for this disaster was the untimely and unseasonal rain, the way in which this rain translated into a massive disaster had a lot to do with how we have been treating the Himalayas in recent years and today. It’s a pity that we still do not have a comprehensive report of this biggest tragedy to tell us what happened during this period, who played what role and what lessons we can learn from this experience.
Floods in Uttarakhand Courtesy: Times of India
One of the relatively positive steps in the aftermath of the disaster came from the Supreme Court of India, when on Aug 13, 2013, a bench of the apex court directed Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)[2] to set up a committee to investigate into the role of under-construction and completed hydropower projects. One would have expected our regulatory system to automatically initiate such investigations, which alas is not the case. Knowing this, some us wrote to MoEF on July 20, 2013[3], to exactly do such an investigation, but again MoEF played deaf and blind to such letters.
5 MW Motigad Project in Pithorgarh District destroyed by the floods. Photo: Emmanuel Theophilus, Himal Prakriti
The committee report, signed by 11 members[5], makes it clear that construction and operation of hydropower projects played a significant role in the disaster. The committee has made detailed recommendations, which includes recommendation to drop at least 23 hydropower projects, to change parameters of some others. The committee also recommended how the post disaster rehabilitation should happen, today we have no policy or regulation about it. While the Supreme Court of India is looking into the recommendations of the committee, the MoEF, instead of setting up a credible body to ensure timely and proper implementation of recommendations of the committee has asked the Court to appoint another committee on the flimsy ground that CWC-CEA have submitted a separate report advocating more hydropower projects! The functioning of the MoEF continues to strengthen the impression that it is working like a lobby for projects rather than an independent environmental regulator. We hope the apex court see through this.
Boulders devouring the Vishnuprayag Project. 26th June 2013 Photo: Matu jan Sangathan
Let us turn our attention to hydropower projects in Himalayas[6]. Indian Himalayas (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand[7], Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and rest of North East) already has operating large hydropower capacity of 17561 MW. This capacity has leaped by 68% in last decade, the growth rate of National Hydro capacity was much lower at 40%. If you look at Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA is Government of India’s premier technical organisation in power sector) list of under construction hydropower projects in India, you will find that 90% of projects and 95% of under construction capacity is from the Himalayan region. Already 14210 MW hydropower capacity is under construction. In fact CEA has now planned to add unbelievable 65000 MW capacity in 10 years (2017 to 2027) between 13th and 14th Five Year Plans.
Meanwhile, the Expert Appraisal Committee of Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on River Valley Projects has been clearing projects at a break-neck speed with almost zero rejection rate. Between April 2007 and Dec 2013[8], this committee recommended final environment clearance to 18030.5 MW capacity, most of which has not entered the implementation stage. Moreover, this committee has recommended 1st stage Environment clearance (what is technically called Terms of Reference Clearance) for a capacity of unimaginable 57702 MW in the same period. This is indicative of the onslaught of hydropower projects which we are likely to see in the coming years. Here again an overwhelming majority of these cleared projects are in Himalayan region.
Agitation Against Lower Subansiri Dam in Assam Source: SANDRP
What does all this mean for the Himalayas, the people, the rivers, the forests, the biodiversity rich area? We have not even fully studied the biodiversity of the area. The Himalayas is also very landslide prone, flood prone, geologically fragile and seismically active area. It is also the water tower of much of India (& Asia). We could be putting that water security also at risk, increasing the flood risks for the plains. The Uttarakhand disaster and changing climate have added new unknowns to this equation.
We all know how poor are our project-specific and river basin-wise cumulative social and environmental impact assessments. We know how compromised and flawed our appraisals and regulations are. We know how non-existent is our compliance system. The increasing judicial interventions are indicators of these failures. But court orders cannot replace institutions or make our governance more democratic or accountable. The polity needs to fundamentally change, and we are still far away from that change.
Peoples protests against Large dams on Ganga. Photo: Matu Jansangathan
The government that is likely to take over post 2014 parliamentary elections has an opportunity to start afresh, but available indicators do not provide such hope. While UPA’s failure is visible in what happened before, during and after the Uttarakhand disaster, the main political opposition that is predicted to take over has not shown any different approach. In fact NDA’s prime ministerial candidate has said that North East India is the heaven for hydropower development. He seems to have no idea about the brewing anger over such projects in Assam and other North Eastern states. That anger is manifest most clearly in the fact that India’s largest capacity under-construction hydropower project, namely the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri HEP has remained stalled for the last 29 months after spending over Rs 5000 crores. The NDA’s PM candidate also has Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) on agenda. Perhaps we have forgotten as to why the NDA lost the 2004 Parliamentary elections. The arrogant and mindless pursuit of projects like ILR and launching of 50 000 MW hydropower campaign by the then NDA government had played a role in sowing the seeds of people’s anger with that government.
In this context we also need to understand what benefits these hydropower projects are actually providing, as against what the promises and propaganda are telling us. In fact our analysis shows that the benefits are far below the claims and impacts and costs are far higher than the projections. The disaster shows that hydropower projects are also at huge risk in these regions. Due to the June 2013 flood disaster large no of hydropower projects were damaged and generation from the large hydro projects alone dropped by 3730 million units. In monetary terms this would mean just the generation loss at Rs 1119 crores assuming conservative tariff of Rs 3 per unit. The loss in subsequent year and from small hydro would be additional.
It is nobody’s case that no hydropower projects be built in Himalayas or that no roads, townships, tourism and other infrastructure be built in the Himalayan states. But we need to study the impact of these massive interventions (along with all other available options in a participatory way) in what is already a hugely vulnerable area, made worse by what we have done so far in these regions and what climate change is threatening to unleash. In such a situation, such onslaught of hydropower projects on Himalayas is likely to be an invitation to even greater disasters across the Himalayas. Himalayas cannot sustain this onslaught.
It is in this context, that the ongoing Supreme Court case on Uttarakhand provides a glimmer of hope. It is not just hydropower projects or other infrastructure projects in Uttarakhand, or for that matter in other Himalayan states that will need to take guidance from the outcome of this case, but it could provide guidance for all kinds of interventions all across Indian Himalayas. Our Himalayan neighbors can also learn from this process. Let us end on that hopeful note here!
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by BJP’s Mr. Narendra Modi has been given a mandate to govern India for the next five years. Without going into the political and social facets related to this issue, there are a number of justifiable concerns about this government’s stand on critical issues of water and environment.
While the importance of water and environment sectors for the people, their livelihoods, society and economy is acknowledged, how crucial these sectors are for them is not easily appreciated. For example, environment is important not only for tigers and trees, but also for livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Indians who depend on natural resources. More than 60-65% Indians continue to depend on agriculture and every farm can benefit from better water resource management.
Some of the major challenges plaguing the water and environment sectors in India include: urgent need for an inclusive, democratic and accountable governance, holistic assessment of impacts the very many interventions in the Himalayas (lessons from Uttarakhand flood disaster of June 2013[1]), ecological restoration of Ganga and other rivers, dealing with climate change in a way that protects lives and livelihoods of the vulnerable sections, etc., to name a few.
The leaders of the party forming the new government have already declared their agenda in terms of completion of Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) on Narmada, pushing interlinking of rivers (ILR), pushing for more dams in the name of irrigation, pushing big hydropower projects in North East India (Mr Modi had said in his campaign that NE is heaven for hydropower projects) and mega industrial initiatives like the Delhi Mumbai Investment Corridor.
This agenda indicates that the importance of water and environment to the vast millions is not understood. Nor is the significance of the challenges to this sector appreciated. Pushing the above agenda is not only fraught with serious risks in terms of social, environmental, economic and interstate issues, but these projects are not likely to deliver the promise of this party at the elections: Better life, more jobs, more development, fulfillment of basic needs of the people who do not have access to these at the moment. Pushing this agenda is not likely to deliver stated promises, however blind push for more and bigger projects will compound strife and conflicts.
Let us look at the issues related to the NDA Agenda. These are not incidental issues, but issues inherent to the nature of these centralized, mega projects themselves.
Does ILR have scientific basis? The basic premise of ILR is that certain basins are water surplus and others are water deficit. It is assumed that occurrence of floods in a basin means there is surplus water in the basin and occurrence of drought or water scarcity in other basin means it is water deficit. This premise itself is not scientifically, ecologically and socially robust.
While this is said, there is no attempt at assessing and exhausting the available water options in any basin in India. Twithout this exercise, there can be no scientific basis for declaring a basin surplus or deficit. The ILR advocates seem to ignore the reality that India’s water lifeline is groundwater and the best way to sustain groundwater is through local water systems and recharge. They also seem to ignore the massive social, environmental impacts and constitutional issues. ILR is basically a collection of large number of major irrigation projects (over 84), but proponents of ILR do not seem to realize that in last two decades, there has been no addition to net irrigated area by these projects, in spite of addition of thousands of new projects.[2]
“Sabarmati Model” holds no water for Ganga or other rivers During the elections in Varanasi constituency that elected Mr Modi, the issue of cleaning of Ganga remained prominent. BJP claimed that they will clean up Ganga at Varanasi the way they cleaned up Sabarmati River that flows through Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The trouble with this claim is that Sabarmati has not been cleaned up at all. The water flowing through Sabarmati as it flows through the city of Ahmedabad is actually the water of Narmada River, diverted into Sabarmati. Ahmedabad has no right over this water which was supposed to be meant for Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat. If you go upstream along Sabarmati River from the point where Narmada Main Canal releases water in Sabarmati, you will see the reality of dry Sabarmati River. And if you go down to the Vasna barrage, downstream of Ahmedabad along the Sabarmati, you will see the state of polluted Sabarmati River. This model clearly holds no water either for Ganga or any other river.
River Ministry? There is speculation in media[3] that the new NDA government is going to create a new River Ministry at the centre. The same media report also stated that this ministry will push Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR)! This seems like a proposal for Ministry of River Destruction, since ILR is a recipe for destruction of rivers. If at all the new government is interested in an act of goodwill towards rivers, it needs to start with understanding what is a river and what are its various functions along the various stretches during various periods, including the social, ecological, economic, hydrological, geo morphological, biodiversity related, groundwater related and most importantly, livelihoods related functions. This exercise will mean understanding the roles of various arms of the government which affect the river. Some key ministries which affect river profoundly include: Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Urban Affairs, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Home Affairs (Disaster Management), Ministry of Agriculture, Department of North East Region, Ministry of Non Conventional Sources of Energy, to name only a few. How is this new proposed Ministry of River Going to coordinate with these ministries? Moreover, according to India’s constitution, Rivers are essentially state subjects and no state is likely to welcome such infringement of centre into what the states see as their domain of responsibility.
Ganga a National Project? There are statements from Mr Amit Shah[4], that the new government will give National status to the Ganga Project. It is not clear what is meant by this. Ganga is already under the Prime-Minister headed National Ganga River Basin Authority, but the Authority, five years after its constitution, has failed to change a single attribute affecting the Ganga. Similarly, Ganga River Basin Management Plan that IIT consortium is working on is already known to be pathetic in its understanding of the river, while pushing for privatization. We do not need another project in the name of Ganga, national or local. If the aim of declaring Ganga as a National Project is to wrest its control from the state, as the media suggests, then it is going to raise a lot of hackles.
What we need is a new approach to river governance, which is based on ecological, and not engineering principles, which is participatory, and not exclusive and which is democratic and not autocratic.
Himalayas & Hydro-onslaught Irrefutable evidence shows that building large number of major hydropower projects in Himalayas is having unprecedented impacts, some are known, many are unknown. The flawed environmental governance around these projects is well known in terms of dishonest EIAs, flawed and compromised appraisals, ineffective (these are consultations just in the namesake, in reality there is no basis for informed participation) public hearing and non-existent compliance, both at project and cumulative level. One implication of this was felt in terms of the role of such projects in the Uttarakhand flood disaster of June 2013, after which, no political leader from any party spoke about this. It was left to the Supreme Court to order and enquiry into this. The report of this investigation clearly indicates the role of hydropower projects in increasing the proportions of the disaster, and more work on this issue remains to be done. In North East itself, India’s biggest mass based public agitation against dams & hydropower projects has been going on. The anger of people has led to stoppage of the work on 2000 MW Lower Subansiri Hydropower project (largest capacity hydropower project under implementation in India) for 30 months now, after over Rs 5000 crores were irresponsibly spent by NHPC without completing even basic studies. Mindless pushing of more such projects in the region is clearly not a prudent move.
Source: MATU Jansangathan
BJP manifesto’s promise of expeditious and single window environment clearances is clearly dangerous in this context. What India needs is stronger and not weaker environmental governance. The advocacy[5] to “reduce time and transaction costs for the industry” under the circumstances seems inappropriate particularly from an organisation which was possibly the only environmental organisation represented on the completely flawed EIA registration process at Quality Council of India. The QCI process failed to achieve any improvement in the quality of EIA in almost 4 years of its existence
Sardar Sarovar Dam The new government wants to take the SSP Dam from its current height of 121.92 m to its final design height of 138.68 m. Firstly, there are serious doubts if this height increase is required since it can be shown that Gujarat and Rajasthan can get their share of water from Narmada without this increase in height. Secondly, Gujarat is not even in a position to use more than 20% of the water it already gets from the river at current height of the dam for the purposes for which the project was designed: providing water for the drought affected regions in Kutch, Saurashtra & North Gujarat. On the other hand, urban centres, industrials areas, SEZs, cosmetic river beautification schemes have appropriated a large chunk of SSP waters without legal, democratic sanction or justification. Gujarat really does not have a case for increasing the height of SSP Dam.
Moreover, this will also entail such massive additional submergence, displacement and disruption of lives of tribals and farmers that it is sure to create huge opposition. The just rehabilitation of already affected people is far from complete, in fact, most of the affected population has not been given minimum 2 ha of land required under the Narmada Tribunal award and subsequent accepted policies.
Mr Modi during his tenure of 13 years as Chief Minister of Gujarat failed to complete the canal network of SSP in the drought prone areas in whose name the project has always been justified. It needs to be noted that the agitation against SSP did not stop Gujarat government from going ahead with construction of canal network. It was not for lack of finances that SSP could not complete the canal network. SSP has been getting largest quantum of money from the Government of India’s Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme ever since the AIBP scheme started in 1996. This support to SSP from AIBP was clearly wrong since SSP was never the last mile project for which AIBP was meant, but the big dam lobby in Union Water Resources ministry and Gujarat government were hand in glove in this misallocation of AIBP money for SSP. In fact, Mr Modi arm-twisted the Planning Commission in 2011-12 to sanction the escalated costs for SSP even when the issues raised by Planning Commission officers remained unanswered.
Unused Narmada Canal waters flow into Salt pans, not only at a huge cost, but also affecting livelihoods of salt pan workers and the ecology Photo: Counterview
It is the ineptitude of Gujarat Government under Mr Modi that is on show in why it could not complete the canal network on drought prone areas in Gujarat. Mr Modi would do well to remember the reasons for that failure before he considers the mega projects agenda as Prime Minister.
Moreover, on SSP, the issues of completing repairs of the damages the Sardar Sarovar dam structure suffered four years ago & related issue of safety of the dam are yet to be resolved[6] and Gujarat has embarked on building another Garudeshwar Dam in immediate downstream without any impact assessments, participatory democratic process or required sanctions[7]. The legality of the Garudeshwar Dam work stands challenged in the National Green Tribunal by the affected tribals.
MAJOR RISKS FOR NEW GOVERNMENT Some major risks for the new government include: the track record of Gujarat government that Mr Modi headed for the last 13 years; no checks from coalition of parties; poor image, strength, morale and track record of Congress as the chief opposition party; large sections of almost completely subservient media[8] and BJP’s problematic manifesto[9].
Why UPA faced people’s anger The new government also needs to remember why the outgoing ruling coalition of UPA (United Progressive Alliance) lost so badly in spite of some unprecedentedly remarkable, and pro people steps taken by it. Absence of accountable and participatory governance (which also manifested in terms numerous scams) was one of the major reasons as to why there was huge anger in people’s mind about the UPA regime. Another aspect of corruption and high-handedness was apparent in the scandalous way UPA dealt with governance of environmental issues: blatantly changing its environment ministers from bad to worse.
Even if we leave aside the Rajas and Balus of UPA I, the UPA II began on a positive note with appointment of Mr Jairam Ramesh as environment minister. While we had our share of criticism of functioning of Mr Ramesh as environment minister[10], he was possibly the best environment minister India have had.
But under pressure from misguided and misinformed corporate vested interests, Mr Ramesh was removed (kicked upstairs) and Mrs Jayanthi Natarajan was brought in. She did not really help the cause of environment as is apparent, for example, from her answers to the two debates on Ganga river in Parliament (these debates were unprecedented in their own right) as also sanctioning projects rejected by statutory bodies like Forest Advisory Committee.
Strangely, she too was removed to bring in disastrously, Mr Veerappa Moily[11], who also held the Oil and Petroleum ministry. Mr Moily then went about the designated task of green lighting everything, not bothering about governance issues, people’s concerns or environmental consequences. This led to massive anger anger against Moily as well as UPA.[12]
Such arrogant handling of governance of environmental issues that affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of most vulnerable sections of people was bound to be punished[13]. This is clearly another reason behind the anger of people that UPA government faced in the elections.
Playing favorites UPA is also guilty of playing favorites when it came to appointing non governmental persons in environmental decision making. In almost every committee on environmental decision making, including Prime Ministers’ Council on Climate Change, National Tiger Task Force, Coastal Zone Management Committee, National Ganga Authority, Inter Ministerial Group on Ganga, Western Ghats Task Force, QCI process on registration of EIA consultants, 12th Plan working Groups to name only a few, everywhere one could find representatives of only particular organisation. Leaving aside the issue of effectiveness of the role played by representatives from this organisation, such tendencies of playing favorites is bound to raise serious questions. While many people at grassroots may not be aware of this inappropriate action by UPA government, the resultant outcomes of these committee invited various reactions ranging from disbelief, anger and even an uproar, as it happened in case of Kasturirangan Committee on Western Ghats.
While the result of anger of the voters could be seen in decimation of the UPA in the elections, the new NDA government will also do well to remember that even the Vajpayee government was voted out in 2004 for similar reasons. The mindless pursuit of agenda of inter linking of rivers and 50000 MW Hydropower initiatives, disregarding all the concerns and protests of the people across the country, along with the rejection of India Shining campaign were some of the causes for the voting out of the previous NDA regime in 2004.
SOME SPECIFIC TASKS In what follows we have given several examples of specific tasks before the new government. This is not an exhaustive, but only an indicative list.
Ganga Action Plan, Rivers Action Plans, NGBRA, CPCB, SPCBs Mr Modi has said that he would like to give priority to cleaning of Ganga River. Any such effort has any chance of success only if there is an attempt at understanding why our efforts at river pollution for the last 40 years have shown no impact:
Þ Water Pollution Control Act, 1974 The Water Pollution Control Act led to setting up a huge and powerful bureaucracy including Central and state pollution control boards. 40 years after setting up of this whole institutional and legal infrastructure, we do not have a single that this establishment can claim to have cleaned up.
Þ Ganga Action Plan, 1986 This plan was launched with much fanfare by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, but without trying to understand why the water pollution bureaucracy failed.
Þ National River Conservation Authority 1994 This authority, the only institution in the name or river conservation in India, had Prime Minister of India, no less, its chairman. In ten years of UPA, the Prime Minister of India did not get time for a single meeting of this authority.
Þ GAP II 2000 The second phase of GAP was launched, again without making any honest attempt at understanding the failure of GAP I.
Þ NGBRA 2009 In Feb 2009, just before the last parliamentary elections, National Ganga River Basin Authority, again under Prime Minister. As noted earlier, this too has failed to make any impact on the state of Ganga.
What all this shows is that we have tried many things, including legal, institutional, financial, and authoritative, with Prime Minister at the helm, but have achieved no success. This is also true of the previous NDA regime during 1998-2006. If we do not make an honest attempt at understanding the reasons for these failures, there is little hope for success in future. The efforts at river cleaning has not suffered due to lack of money (over Rs 20 000 crores have been spent on Ganga alone, as per one estimate), for lack of institutions, for lack of political attention, for lack of media attention, for lack of judicial attention, for lack of infrastructure [where infrastructure exists (e.g. Delhi with the highest Sewage Treatment Capacity], there too there is no change in state of river), or technology. One major reason for the failure was the complete disconnect between the people whose lives depend on the river and those who took the decisions or managed the system. In other words, unless you make the river governance more democratic, there is no hope for Ganga or other rivers.
Some basic steps to make governance of rivers democratic could include: Setting up of management committee (with 50% independent members from outside the government) for management of each Sewage Treatment Plant, each freshwater treatment plant, each tributary, each 10 km stretch of river, each water utility, each city (& sub city level where cities have population above 1 lakh). These committees should be legally empowered and the officials should be made responsible to these committees.
Jayanthi Tax In this regard, it would be useful to remember that during the election campaign, Mr Modi had accused Mrs Jayanthi Natarajan for collecting Jayanthi Tax as environment Minister, allegedly for collecting bribes for environment clearances. This was a very serious charge Mr Modi had leveled. Now that he heads the new government at centre, he must institute a credible enquiry into this charge to prove that he was not making just frivolous statements.
Maharashtra Irrigation Scam One state that has given NDA the highest number of seats after Uttar Pradesh is Maharashtra, the NDA coalition got 42 of 48 seats in this state. One of the major reasons for this debacle of UPA was that the UPA here got a very corrupt image, in spite of its Chief Minister having a relatively clean image. This was largely due to the massive Rs 70 000 crores irrigation scam in that state. The NDA partners in Maharashtra also played a role in exposing this corruption, although the top brass of NDA was also allegedly involved in the scandal. To this corrupt image was added the arrogance shown, for example, by deputy Chief Minister (who resigned on charges of corruption, but came back even without any investigation into the charges) when he first asked how are people expecting him to give water from dams – by urinating in the dams? During elections he actually threatened a village that water will be cut off if they do not vote for his party! This combination of corruption and arrogance was sufficient to enrage the voters.
Here again one expects the NDA government at centre to take decisive credible action in exposing the guilty in Maharashtra irrigation scam and brining to book those who are responsible both among the politicians and bureaucrats-engineers. Here, as BJP spokespersons in Maharashtra have been saying, the Madhav Chitale committee has basically done white washing role[14] and hence we need an independent investigation. We hope NDA government at centre will take this up urgently.
Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Scam Similar action is also required in Andhra Pradesh Irrigation scam exposed by the CAG report[15].
AIBP As noted above, the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Program has majorly failed in achieving any additional net irrigation area by major projects at national level. The CAG has noted in more than one report the failure of AIBP and so has the Planning Commission. The new NDA government could start with instituting a credible independent enquiry into the reasons for failure of this scheme.
Uttarakhand Disaster and role of hydropower projects[16] Following the worst ever disaster faced by the state of Uttarakhand in June 2013, the role played by indiscriminate construction of hydropower projects and other infrastructure needed to be investigated since prime facie they had played significant role in increasing the proportions of disaster. The UPA government did nothing, and it was left to the Supreme Court to ask MoEF to set up an Expert Body for this. In the meantime, SC ordered stay on any more projects. The MoEF along with Central Water Commission and Central Electricity Authority and the Congress’s Uttarakhand state government, have been trying to push more projects in stead of honoring the Apex Court orders. In April 2014, the report of Expert Body lead by Dr Ravi Chopra has been submitted. The new Union government, it is hoped, will take credible steps to implement the recommendations of the Expert Body at the earliest date.
Independent National Environment Monitor It is well known that MoEF as an independent environmental regulator is seriously compromised with shoddy EIAs, flawed appraisal and non existent compliance. This situation has remained unchanged for the last decade and more. The Supreme Court of India, seeing this, had in 2011 ordered that an Independent Environment Regulator needs to be set up at National and state level. The outgoing central government had shown reluctance to do anything in this regard, in spite of repeated Supreme Court orders. The new government has a historical opportunity to indeed set up a truly independent & accountable environment regulator, at the same time increasing the transparency and participation of people in the environmental governance through fresh round of democratic reforms.
Cabinet Committee on Investment One of the flawed legacy of the previous UPA government is the Cabinet Committee on Investment, which has been created to bypass the statutory work of the MoEF. The new Union government would do well to disband this extra legal committee.
Polavaram Project Authority Even as elections were underway, in a most inappropriate decision, the outgoing government set up a Polvaram Project Authority, without even consulting affected states of Orissa and Chhattisgarh. In both these states there is either BJP government or BJP led government. There are also cases going on against this project, including civil suits filed by the governments of Chhattisgarh and Orissa. In the interest of these states and affected tribals, the new Union Government should scrap the Polavaram Project Authority.
Mullaperiyar The 119 year old Mullaperiyar dam has already suffered damages in the past and there is no doubt that it has limited life. To overcome the inflexible attitude of Tamil Nadu and respecting the constitutional duty of Kerala government to protect the life and property of people of Kerala, it become the duty of the Union government to initiate process for new a arrangement (e.g. lower the intake level to 50 ft from current 106 ft, as seen promising both by the Empowered Body and Supreme Court in May 2014) and decommissioning of the dam in a time bound manner. The previous Union government completely failed in this and the new government has an opportunity to correct this.
Central Water Commission Central Water Commission is India’s premier technical body on water resources. Water resources development and management has always remained crucial to any country’s water, food, livelihood and environment security. However, for this we need a really independent and credible technical body at the top, on the lines of United States Geological Survey (USGS). USGS, is known to be source of very reliable water resources data world over. However, USGS’s main task is to gather data and put it in public domain. Use of that data for development tasks and such other functions are not the mandate of USGS, there are other bodies for that. Unfortunately in India, CWC tasked with data gathering, sanctioning projects, monitoring and so many other contradictory functions. Moreover, CWC is working more like a big dam lobby, and even the assessment of hydrological data, flood forecasting functioning, water use data and projections, climate change implications, dam safety issues, etc are all getting colored by the lobbying tendency of those who head CWC. This is having a very deleterious effect on the water resources development and management in India.
It is high time that there are reforms in CWC to separate its various contradictory functions and make its functioning transparent, accountable and participatory. The new Union government has a chance to initiate such reforms in CWC and Ministry of Water Resources.
Technical Advisory Committee of CWC The TAC of CWC is a very little known, but powerful body. It sanctions projects worth thousands of crores every year, but its functioning is completely non transparent, unaccountable and it has no independent members. Since the new government has been raising the issue of corruption by UPA during the election campaign, it is hoped that the new government will work to fight corruption and one of the key steps it can do is to make the functioning of TAC transparent, accountable and ensure that at least 50% members of the TAC are non governmental, independent people with track record of having shown independent mind.
Urban Water Sector The social, environmental, economic and carbon footprint of this sector increasing at huge pace, without any success story in sight. The big cities are find it easy to promote construction of big dams rather than go for rain water harvesting, sewage water treatment & recycle, demand side measurement, groundwater recharge, reduction in losses and such other measures. SANDRP report on unjustified dams being pushed in Mumbai highlights this issue. The 12th Plan Working Group report on Urban water issues have several useful recommendations that has remained unimplemented. These need to be urgently implemented.
Climate Change Climate change in the biggest threat that vulnerable sections of Indian people face, as do the vulnerable sections of the rest of the world. This is not only relevant for water and environment sectors that we are discussing here, but for all sectors. As Environmental Groups in Gujarat have noted[17], people of Gujarat do not have good experience of the Modi regime in the state. The record of the 10 year long UPA government is very poor on this issue. We hope the new Union government will do better and begin with identification of the sections of the people who are vulnerable and start working on action plan to address the concerns of such sections, while also reducing the carbon footprint of India through reduction in consumption patterns of richer sections.
Suggestions for positive actions As analysed by Dr. Ashok Gulati (former chairman of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices) and Dr. Tushar Shah (International Water Management Institute) separately, the relatively high agricultural growth in Gujarat in first decade of current millennium was largely due to local water harvesting work that happened in Gujarat through check dams, groundwater recharge etc, largely in non governmental sector. The new government at centre can bring about changes in policies and programs to learn lessons from such success stories to achieve such results all over India.
Similarly on the issue or river rejuvenation, management and conservation front as also environmental management front, a decentralized bottom up community driven approach can be taken up.
It can encourage people led, scientific and ecological river restoration work.
Promote System of Rice Intensification in a major way, it can not only reduce water use, fertiliser use, use of other chemicals, reduce seed requirement, increase farmers’ income, reduce agriculture sector’s carbon footprint and thus help mitigate and also adaptation to changing climate. This is possible in other crops too, as has been demonstrated at farmer level.
Encourage measures that can help increase carbon content of the soil, this will also have multiple benefits to farmers, economy and environment.
It can strengthen implementation of Forest Rights Act which UPA, despite introducing it, failed to do.
It can protect free flowing rivers for their social, ecological, cultural values.
It can also engage more effectively with civil society and community groups in a credible manner.
A recent SANDRP study “Shrinking and Sinking Deltas: Role of Large Dams” has shown that large dams are playing big role in sinking of deltas in India. This is not even properly studied. The new government can initiate a scientific study in this regard and ensure that before taking up any new project, this aspect is studied.
Conclusion I started writing this brief note following questions from several media friends, but it has become much longer! So let us come to the conclusion. I am not even sure if the new government is in any mood to listen to such unsolicited suggestions, but let us put it out and hope for the best! I decided to put this out, even as Mr Modi prepares to take office on May 26.
This article tries to show the risks, challenges and some immediate tasks of the new government at the centre. In sum, the new NDA government would do well not to forget the reasons for rejection of NDA in 2004 and UPA now in 2014. Both were guilty of bull dozing ahead with their agendas without listening to the people. Avoiding that may be the biggest challenge this government faces, besides the specific ones mentioned above.
[13] For example, Dakshin Kannada and Mangalore saw a huge socio-political movement against Moily and Congress due to his politically motivated support to Yettinahole Diversion Project.
Drop 23 projects, do cumulative assessments & improve governance
In a significant development on role of hydropower projects in Uttarakhand flood disaster of June 2013, the Expert Body (EB) headed by Dr Ravi Chopra has recommended that at least 23 hydropower projects should be dropped, that hydropower projects played significant role in the Uttarakhand disaster and that there is urgent need to improve the environment governance of hydropower projects. The Report “Assessment of Environmental Degradation and Impact of Hydroelectric Projects During The June 2013 Disaster in Uttarakhand” dated April 2014 has been submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on April 16, 2014 and was made public following hearing in the Supreme Court on April 28, 2014. The committee was appointed by a reluctant Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in October 2013, following the Supreme Court’s suo motto order of August 13 2013.
Damaged Vishnuprayag Dam in Uttarakhand floods of June 2013: Source: MATU Jansangathan
Uttarakhand floods of June 2013[1],[2]: The committee report endorses the stand taken in a letter[3] that was written to MoEF on July 20, 2013, endorsed by over 20 individuals and groups including from Uttarakhand on the role of existing and under construction hydropower projects in the Uttarakhand floods of June 2013. MoEF did not take any action on this letter, but it was Supreme Court order next month that pushed MoEF to take necessary action.
SC order of Aug 13, 2013[4]: On Aug 13, 2013, while disposing off the petition on Srinagar HEP in Uttarakhand, the Supreme Court, suo motto, made an order that asked, MoEF and Uttarakhand governments not to provide any further clearances to any more hydropower projects anywhere in Uttarakhand till further orders. Both MoEF and Uttarakhand governments have been violating this order. However, one of the fall outs of this order was formulation of Expert Body appointed by MoEF more than two months latter, through an order on Oct 15, 2013, whose report now is available in public domain.
Limited TOR[5]: The Supreme Court order of Aug 13, 2013 pertained to whole of Uttarakhand, as was the disaster of June 2013. However, the MoEF order and subsequently CWC tried to restrict the field of work of the committee to Alaknanda and Bhagirathi sub basins rather than whole of Uttarakhand.
Problematic constitution: The constitution of the Expert body was also problematic from a number of aspects. There was clear conflict of interest with respect to some of the members like Dr BP Das, former member and Vice Chair of the MoEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects, as explained below. The committee also included chairman of Central Water Commission and Central Electricity Authority, which unfortunately act like lobbies for hydropower projects. These persons were in the committee to bring in respective expertise, but in stead used their presence in the committee to discredit evidence which suggested clear role of hydropower projects, some members also advocated for more hydropower projects, in stead of adhering to the mandate given by the Supreme Court, thus raising the issue of contempt of court.
In what follows we have given some useful recommendations and conclusions of the EB, followed by some weak recommendations and conclusions of the EB report, based on a quick reading of the report (we got the over 200 page report only on April 29, 2014), following by some remarks on role of vice chair, CWC, CEA, MoEF and our conclusion.
Map of Mandakini Valley, epicenter of Uttarakhand floods of June 2013 (Source: EB report)
On 24 projects recommended to be dropped by WII “After considerable discussions and analysis, the Expert Body concluded that of the 24 proposed Hydropower Projects (HEPs) that Wildlife Institute of India (WII) recommended for Review, 23 HEPs would have significant irreversible impacts on biodiversity values.”
“The EB recommends that for the 23 proposed HEPs out of the 24 identified by WII (other than the Kotli Bhel 1A project) that would have irreversible impacts on the biodiversity of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi Basins, the HEPs that fall in any of the following conditions should not be approved for construction.
(a) Proposed HEPs that fall inside wildlife Protected Areas such National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries
(b) Proposed HEPs that fall within the Gangotri Eco-sensitive Zone
(c) Proposed HEPs that fall above 2,500m that encompass critical wildlife habitats, high biological diversity, movement corridors, and fragile in nature due to unpredictable glacial and paraglacial activities.
(d) Proposed HEPs that fall within 10 km from the boundary of Protected Areas and have not obtained clearance from the National Board for Wildlife.”
It would have been in fitness of things if EB had exclusively asked for stoppage of work on all these 23 projects with immediate effect.
On Kotli Bhel 1A The EB has, we believe, erroneously concluded, over ruling the conclusion of WII and expert review initiated by EB, “that the Kotli Bhel 1A project might not significantly worsen the condition of the river Bhagirathi between Koteshwar and Devprayag – already part of a highly fragmented zone”. However, EB has asked for “due modifications to its design and operations so that an adequate stretch of the river downstream of the Koteshwar dam just above KB-IA can be maintained in a free flowing state”. This means the project work should stop and it should reapply for clearances after doing the suggested modifications in credible way.
Restoration: “The river bed profiles at Phata-Byung, Singoli-Bhatwari, Vishnuprayag and Srinagar HEPs have changed significantly. This requires a fresh analysis of the project hydrology and redesigning them if necessary.
All projects must undertake river restoration works after prior clearance from MoEF. It was noticed that project developers were engaged in projects’ restoration only. MoEF needs to conduct a formal review of the environmental damages at all the HEPs in Uttarakhand and prepare guidelines for restoration. Till then none of the projects should begin power production.”
HEPs above 2 MW need EC “All projects > 2 MW, shall require prior Environmental Clearances (EC) from MoEF”.
“A multidisciplinary expert body should be constituted with members of proven expertise and experience to review every year the progress/performance of each HEP and its compliance with the sanction conditions. This body will also review the technicalities of disaster preparedness before each monsoon season and examine the impact of monsoon storm and floods on the performance of all the project components. The environmental health of the river will be a critical area for comprehensive examination.”
No projects above winter snow line “Learning from the June 2013 event, the EB believes that the enhanced sediment availability from and in paraglacial zones could be a serious problem for the longevity of the existing, under construction and proposed HEPs in Uttarakhand. Therefore the EB recommends that the terrain above the MCT in general and above the winter snow line in particular (~2200-2500 m) should be kept free from hydropower interventions in Uttarakhand.”
SIA should be carried out for all river systems in Uttarakhand “The WII study has already identified 24 proposed HEPs in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins as likely to cause irreversible impacts. But comprehensive research studies of other basins in Uttarakhand are lacking at this stage… Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) be carried out in other major river basins of Uttarakhand such as the Yamuna and Kali basins.”
Distance between projects in a cascade “Scientific studies by subject experts should be conducted for establishing baseline data on river parameters, diversity and populations of floral and faunal species in different rivers of Uttarakhand at different elevation zones. Such studies should be used for deciding upon the minimum distances between two consecutive HEPs. Until such scientific studies are completed, no new HEPs (in S&I stage) should be cleared on the rivers of Uttarakhand within a distance that may later be revoked. Minimum distances for projects in the clearance stage should be significantly revised upward from the current consideration of 1 km.”
SANDRP Map of Bumper to Bumper hydropower projects in Alaknanda basin in Uttarakhand
National Himalayan Policy “Since the Himalaya are our vital source of growth and abundance, a National Himalayan Policy needs to be urgently created and implemented.”
“Therefore, the EB strongly recommends that a detailed study of the impacts of hydropower projects in terms of deforestation/tunneling/ blasting/reservoir formation on the hydrogeology of the area should be carried out.”
A study on the role of large artificial reservoirs on local climate change and precipitation patterns with special reference to the Tehri dam reservoir.”
Sediment transportation studies “Recent studies have highlighted serious concern about the Indian deltas, which are shrinking due to changes in river courses. The Ganga-Brahmaputra delta is also noted in this category. This seems to be a major issue in near future therefore we recommend that the studies should be carried out regarding the impacts on sediment transportation due to projects existing on Himalayan rivers.”
Cultural impacts of HEPs “Therefore EB recommends that the Ministry of Culture along with the local representatives and spiritual leaders should undertake a comprehensive study of the cultural impacts of HEPs in the spiritually rich state of Uttarakhand.”
“The river bed profiles at Phata-Byung, Singoli-Bhatwari, Vishnuprayag and Srinagar HEPs have changed significantly. This requires a fresh analysis of the project hydrology and redesigning them if necessary.”
“River Regulation Zone (R.R.Z.) guidelines should be issued immediately by the Ministry of Environment & Forests and should be executed accordingly.”
Muck Management: “The existing practices of muck management are inadequate to protect the terrain and the people from an eventuality like the June 2013 flood. Therefore, a serious revisit is required towards evolving technically better and ecologically sustainable methods for muck disposal and rehabilitation in Uttarakhand.”
Environmental Flows: “Till such time as a decision is taken on the EFlows recommendations of the IITs-consortium, the EB recommends EFlows of 50% during the lean season and 30% during the remaining non-monsoon months. Sustaining the integrity of Uttarakhand’s rivers and their eco-systems is not negotiable.”
Eco-Sensitive Zones: “It is recommended that legislation be enacted to (i) protect small but significant rivers (as done in Himachal Pradesh and also recommended by the IMG for Uttarakhand) as pristine rivers and (ii) designate Eco-Sensitive Zones for all rivers of Uttarakhand.”
Community based CA and CAT “Community-based CA and CAT plan execution must be done by the State Forest Department within the construction period of the project.” This is to be monitored by a committee that includes two representatives from local communities, a renowned environmentalist, among others.
Forests and Biodiversity Conservation: “Community based CAT programmes have to be systemically implemented for ensuring sustenance of the plantations. This requires training of forest officials to work with the communities through their Van Panchayats.”
“It was brought to the notice of the EB that clearances to start work had been granted recently to the Lakhwar (300 MW) and Vyasi (120 MW) projects. This is in violation of the spirit of the Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order of August 13, 2013. It is also noticed that these projects were approved more than 25 years ago. Consequently they do not have any EIA/EMP/DMP studies that are mandatory today. Without conducting cumulative impact assessments and disaster management studies of the Yamuna and Kali basins no such projects should be allowed at the risk of fragile ecology, biodiversity and lives of people living in and around the project sites.”[6]
SOME WEAK RECOMMENDATIONS OF EB
“The EB recommends that MoEF strengthens its personnel and procedures for post-sanction monitoring of environmental conditionalities. The MoEF should develop a programme for research studies by reputed organizations on the impacts of HEPs on river water quality (and flows). Pre-construction and post operation long term impacts monitoring studies are required.”
Geology & Social Issues: “Given the massive scale of construction of HEPs in Uttarakhand it may be worthwhile to set up a formal institution or mechanism for investigating and redressing complaints about damages to social infrastructure. The functioning of such an institution can be funded by a small cess imposed on the developers. It is also suggested that to minimize complaints of bias, investigations should be carried out by joint committees of subject experts and the community.”
Disaster Management: “Disaster preparedness is critical because all of Uttarakhand lies either in seismic Zone IV or V. These areas are most vulnerable to strong earthquakes. Disaster Management Plans (DMPs) are critical parts of EIA Reports. They need to be carefully reviewed and approved by local communities in the probable zone of influence.”
“It is necessary to establish an independent authority which may commission EIA Reports…”
CONCLUSIONS OF EB:
On Role of Dams in Uttarakhand disaster:
In Chapter 3 (p 10) chairman of EB notes, “Thus THDC’s inundation analysis results could
not be substantiated by the ground survey in Haridwar city.”
“In September 2010, to retain flood inflows in the face of water levels rising beyond the permitted FRL the (Tehri) dam authorities had to seek the permission of the Supreme Court. It led to inundation of the upstream town of Chinyalisaur and later after draw down fresh landslide zones were created around the reservoir rim.”
“Geo-chemical analysis of sediment samples taken from various locations along the river stretch in Srinagar, however, indicated a significant contribution — varying from 47% near the barrage to about 23% much further downstream (Fig. 3.19, pg 101, Main Report) — from muck eroded from muck disposal sites 6 and 9 located on the concave right bank and consequently experienced an intense current of the order of 7m/sec.
This raises a question that if there was heavy to very heavy rainfall from the glacial reaches of the Alaknanda valley, leading to numerous landslides along the banks, then why was massive damage observed only downstream of the Vishnuprayag and Srinagar HEPs? A detailed investigation is warranted in order to arrive at a scientifically viable explanation.”
“Otters appear to be nearing extinction in the Ganga, Alaknanda sub-basins.”
It is good to see that the EB has effectively rejected the critique of the WII report presented by Dr. Sabyasachi Dasgupta, HNB Garhwal University and consultant to UJVNL, following an independent review of the WII report by Prof. Brij Gopal, an eminent ecological scientist who had worked extensively on river ecosystems. Prof Brij Gopal, while finding some limitations in WII methodology, concluded: “he agreed with WII’s findings that the 24 proposed hydropower projects would impact the biodiversity of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins significantly. Based on his own analysis, Prof Gopal recommended that several more projects be dropped.”
SOME WEAK CONCLUSIONS:
“A ground survey of the inundation analysis carried out by THDC on the basis of which it claimed to have saved Haridwar from drowning raised doubts about the accuracy of the computer generated inundation maps. It is therefore not clear how much of Haridwar would have been affected if the Tehri dam had not been there. The problem at Haridwar, as at other towns and habitations along river banks, is that there has been wide spread encroachment and construction inside the river’s regime. Therefore it is imperative to set up river regulation zones where encroachments are forbidden. (Unscientific sand mining on river beds adds to the problem.)”
“There is some doubt about whether the Vishnuprayag project authorities were able to properly manage the opening and closing of the gates.”
Role of Dr B P Das: Dr B P Das has for close to a decade been member or vice chair or officiating chair of the Expert Appraisal Committee of MoEF on River Valley project and has in the process been involved in appraising and deciding on clearances for a no of projects and their impacts in Uttarakhand. Hence he was not likely to be in a position to take an independent view on Uttarakhand hydropower projects as there was a conflict of interest involved with respect to his earlier decisions. His biased views were also known through his article in The Hindu earlier. This got reflected in the alternate view on page 27 of chapter 3 and page 16-17 of Chapter 4 of the report authored by Dr Das. In Chapter 3 box, Dr Das’s abiding faith in the project developer could be seen. In Chapter 4 box Dr Das himself mentions that EAC has yet to take a view on WII report, but the he himself is a responsible party for EAC not having taken a view on WII report.
Role of CWC, CEA chairpersons: CWC (Central Water Commission, India’s premier technical body on water resources development under Union Ministry of Water Resources) and CEA (Central Electricity Authority, India’s premier technical body on power sector are largely known to act as lobbies for hydropower projects, in stead of the independent technical and regulatory body that they are expected to work as. In view of that, inclusion of chairperson of CWC and CEA in this committee was wrong step on the part of MoEF. We learn from a letter written by two eminent members of the committee, namely Dr Shekhar Pathak and Dr Hemant Dhyani on March 27, 2014, that indeed the chairpersons of CWC and CEA did not really participate in the way they were required to, and rather functioned in violation of the Supreme Court order.
Scanned version of last part of the letter of 27.03.2014 from Dr Shekhar Pathak and Dr Hemant Dhyani, members of EB
Role of MoEF: One had expected that the EB would take a critical view of the functioning of the MoEF around HEPs and contribution of MoEF’s failures in increasing the disaster proportions. Unfortunately we are disappointed in this. Possibly, with the committee having been appointed by MoEF and member secretary of the committee being MoEF official this was a difficult ask. However, not being able to take a critical stand on the role of MoEF (and other institutions like CWC, CEA, state environment department, state disaster management department etc) imposes a limitation on the EB report and provides a free reign to guilty party. The consequences of this became apparent when on April 28, 2014, during the Supreme Court hearing, we are told, the MoEF presented erroneous picture that there are two reports of the committee, one by 10 members(wrongly called activists) another by Vice Chair B P Das, with CWC and CEA chair persons, when at best the note from these three persons can be considered dissent note, that too in violation of SC orders. We hope the Supreme Court will take strong view of this misleading picture presented by MoEF and reprimand the responsible officials to ensure that this does not happen again.
View of the Committee working through its minutes
Minutes of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th meeting are available on the MoEF, Lucknow regional office website. Perusal of the minutes shed light of the functioning of the committee, and the biases of some specific members. Some highlights from the minutes:
THDC, Tehri and Muck Disposal Sites: Site visit reports of various members, including Dr. Amit Gupta, Dy Director of MoEF presented that THDC is managing active and non active muck disposal sites ‘poorly’. The sites do not have proper retaining wall, slop or plantations.
THDC hid drift tunnel of Koteshwar dam: Member Hemant Dhyani exposed that THDC officials did not accept the presence of a huge drift tunnel of Koteshwar Project near Payal Gaon, which was suffering from severe subsidence. Only when the local people, including the tunnel construction workers insisted that there is a tunnel that the THDC officials accept this fact!
In the 3rd meeting, the Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand told the committee that projects with EC or FC should not be closed or stopped. Note here that this suggestion is unacceptable when the SC itself has asked the committee to investigate the role of projects in the flood damages.
To top this, Additional Chief Secretary unilaterally asserted that HEP did not have any role in the mishap. He emphasised every Environmental CLearance needs an EIA. This indicates his poor knowledge about the quality of EIAs which has been accepted by most experts.
He further stressed that a umber of FC cases were peding before the MoEF. Moef official YK Singh Chauhan rebutted this claim.
In the 4th Meeting, Dr. B.P. Das, Co Chair of the committee categorized June event as a rare natural calamity and attributed the losses only to road construction ( Incidentally, many roads are being built for hydel projects, and do not even allow access to local communities.)
Dr. Ravi Chopra, Chairperson highlighted the poor data management of THDC. He highlighted that THDC could not provide HFL data, rainfall data, inlet level from Maneri Bhali II and outlet level sought by the committee members.
Conclusion: In spite of certain weaknesses, most of the recommendations of the committee need to be immediately implemented and till they are implemented in letter and spirit, the Supreme Court should order a status quo on any further hydropower projects. The EB headed by Dr Ravi Chopra should be congratulated for this report in spite of difficult circumstances under which the committee operated.
Þ We also hope the Supreme Court would ask MoEF to order stoppage of work on Lakhwar and Vyasi projects that has been started recently, violating the Supreme Court order in letter and spirit, and also as pointed out by the EB.
Þ The work on 24 hydropower projects that was part of explicit TOR of the committee should be ordered to stop immediately. The EB should have made this explicit recommendation, but even if they have not done that, it is implicit in its recommendation.
Þ The Supreme Court should ask MoEF to provide a time bound action plan on implementation of the various recommendations of the EB. The SC an also possibly appoint EB (minus Dr Das, CWC and CEA persons) to oversee the implementation of the action plan and continue to provide independent feedback on adequacy of such implementation.
Þ The Lessons from Uttarakhand are relevant for all Himalayan states of India from Kashmir to all the North East states and we hope Supreme Court to ask the follow up committee to ensure that these lessons are taken note of and necessary steps flowing there from are implemented in these Himalayan states. These will also provide guidance to our Himalayan neighbouring countries.
Þ The failure of environmental governance is one of the clearest stark message from this episode and we hope MoEF will put its house in order in this respect, revamping its entire environmental governance.
[7] Reuters report on this issue: http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/29/india-flood-idINL6N0NL0VC20140429
[8] The section “View of the Committee working through its minutes” has been put together by SANDRP colleague Parineeta Dandekar. I am also thankful to her for other useful suggestions from her.
Reconstituted Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects:
MoEF has neither environment sense, nor guts: Unacceptable Committee
On Sept 5, 2013, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests came out with “Re-constitution of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for River Valley & Hydro Electric Project” (see: http://envfor.nic.in/sites/default/files/EAC-Order-05092013.pdf). Mr Alok Perti, former Coal Secretary, has been made chairperson of the committee that appraises all major irrigation projects, dams, hydropower projects and river valley projects for Environment clearances at two stages (TOR and final). It is shocking to see that Mr Perti who has absolutely no environment credentials, who has been known to be anti environment, who has been accusing the environment ministry to be in road block of coal mining and who has shown his ignorance of environment issues on several occasions has been selected as chair person, putting aside basic environmental sense. This reconstituted EAC on RiverValley and Hydropower projects is completely unacceptable.
It is equally disturbing to see that the committee has no woman representation, no sociologist, no one from non-government organisations. All ten members are either from government, government organisations or government funded academic organisations. This means that none of them would be in a position to take a stand independent of the government stand. The committee also has no river expert, climate change-water expert or disaster management expert, all of which are crucially important issues for a committee like this that decides the fate of India’s rivers, even more so after the Uttarakhand disaster. P K Chaudhuri, one of the members of the new committee also has had nothing to do with rivers, water or environment. Hardip S Kingra, who was involved in Commonwealth games organisation and also chairman of National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation has had no work related to rivers or environment.
Specifically, Mr Alok Perti, who has been senior functionary, including secretary of currently controversial Coal Ministry from Oct 2009 to earlier this year and before Oct 2009 in ministries like defense and family welfare, clearly has had no background on environment or rivers. As coal secretary, he had accused MoEF for stalling the growth by not giving clearances to coal mining projects automatically. The Economic Times quoted Perti as saying in a report[1]: “India has to decide whether she wants electricity or tigers.” Such simplistic statements reflect he has absolutely no understanding of environment, biodiversity, leave aside rivers. Perti’s anti civil society stance was also exposed when he refused to discuss issues with activists and asked them to go and file RTIs[2]. These are only a couple of examples we are giving here, there are many others. By appointing such a person as chairman of the EAC on RVP, the MoEF has shown it has no guts or interest in protecting the environment or forests which is supposed to be its mandate. This committee is clearly unacceptable and will also not stand legal scrutiny.
Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, vrg.iyer@nic.in
Maninder Singh
Joint Secretary,
Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, jsicmoef@nic.in
Mr. B. B. Barman
Director (IA) River Valley Projects,
Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, bidhu-mef@nic.in
Subject: Urgent concerns about reconstituted Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley Proejcts
Respected madam and sirs,
On Sept 5, 2013, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests came out with “Re-constitution of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for River Valley & Hydro Electric Project” (see: http://envfor.nic.in/sites/default/files/EAC-Order-05092013.pdf). Mr Alok Perti, former Coal Secretary, has been made chairperson of the committee that appraises all major irrigation projects, dams, hydropower projects and river valley projects for Environment clearances at two stages (TOR and final). It is shocking to see that Mr Perti who has absolutely no environment credentials, who has been known to be anti environment, who has been accusing the environment ministry to be in road block of coal mining and who has shown his ignorance of environment issues on several occasions has been selected as chair person, putting aside basic environmental sense. This reconstituted EAC on River Valley and Hydropower projects is completely unacceptable.
It is equally disturbing to see that the committee has no woman representation, no sociologist, no one from non-government organisations. All ten members are either from government, or from government organisations or government funded academic organisations. This means that none of them would be in a position to take a stand independent of the government stand. The committee also has no river expert, climate change-water expert or disaster management expert, all of which are crucially important issues for a committee like this that decides the fate of India’s rivers, even more so after the Uttarakhand disaster. P K Chaudhuri, one of the members of the new committee also has done no work with rivers, water or environment, going by his CV. Hardip S Kingra, who was involved in Commonwealth games organisation and also chairman of National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation has had no work related to rivers or environment.
Specifically, Mr Alok Perti, who has been senior functionary, including secretary of currently controversial Coal Ministry from Oct 2009 to early 2013 and before Oct 2009 he has been in ministries like defense and family welfare, clearly has had no background on environment or rivers. As coal secretary, he had accused MoEF for stalling the growth by not giving clearances to coal mining projects automatically. The Economic Times quoted Perti as saying in a report[1]: “India has to decide whether she wants electricity or tigers.” Such simplistic statements reflect he has absolutely no understanding of environment, biodiversity, leave aside rivers. Perti’s anti civil society stance was also exposed when he refused to discuss issues with activists and asked them to go and file RTIs[2]. By appointing such a person as chairman of the EAC on RVP, the MoEF has shown it has no interest in protecting the environment or forests which is supposed to be its mandate. This committee is clearly unacceptable and will also not stand legal scrutiny.
Under the circumstances, we demand that:
1. The notification (No. J-12011/EAC /2010-IA-I dated Sept 5, 2013) of reconstitution of the EAC be cancelled;
Many in the media and outside are calling the current Uttarakhand floods disaster of huge but as yet unknown proportions as Himalayan Tsunami somewhat erroneously. By that very name, we connect the combined fate of all Himalayan states and lessons that are inherent that other Himalayan states need to learn from this tragedy.
Similarities between Uttarakhand and Himalayan state like Arunachal Pradesh In fact one article[i] has already been written that draws some parallels, predicting what Uttarkhand experiences today[ii], Sikkim may tomorrow and Arunachal day after. The article did not realize that Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir are ahead of North East in this queue. Indeed there are a lot of similarities between the situation in Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh in particular and Himalayan states in general:
A view of the under-construction dam tunnels at the site of National Hydroelectric Power Corporation’s 2000 megawatt Subansiri Lower hydroelectric project in Arunachal Pradesh state, India, Friday, Aug. 21, 2009. It is the biggest hydroelectric power project in India, located on a disputed border between Arunachal Pradesh state and Assam state. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Both Himalayan hill states are fragile, part of new mountain that is prone to high intensity rainfall events, including cloud bursts. In fact the average rainfall in Arunachal Pradesh is much higher than that in Uttarakhand.
Both states are also prone to flash floods and landslides.
Both states are home to very large number of rapidly flowing silt laden rivers that can turn into ravaging, eroding, force of destruction if not handled carefully. Again Arunachal Pradesh has much large number of major rivers than Uttarakhand. Arunachal rivers are also known to carry more silt than Uttarakhand rivers.
Both states are in seismically active area in zone IV and V, with tectonic activities that can lead to impact on land, rivers, increasing the disaster potential.
Both states have very high proportion of area under forests, which is necessary for the sustained existence of the local environment, people and biodiversity. Livelihood and water security of people in both states majorly depends on these natural resources.
Both states are prone to climate change impacts in major way, Himalayas have already seen increase in temperature that are 2-3 times higher than the average global temperature rise of 0.9° C. These climate change impacts include greater frequency of high intensity rainfall, including cloud bursts that can also increase the potential of landslides and flashfloods.
Broken flood protection walls, Karcham Wangtoo Hydel Project, Himachal Pradesh a few km downstream of dam. Photo: SANDRP Partners
Lessons from Uttarakhand tragedy Some of the lessons that Uttarakhand and other Himalayan states can draw from the current tragedy include:
Ensure credible environmental and social impact assessment of all activities including all dams and all hydropower projects of above 1 MW capacity, such assessments should also include how the projects can increase the disaster potential of the area, how they will affect the adaptation capacity of the local people in the context of climate change, how the projects themselves would be affected in changing climate, among other aspects. Currently, we do not have credible environmental and social impact assessment for any project.
Ensure credible environmental compliance mechanism in place for each project in which local people have a key role. Today we have NO credible environmental compliance in place.
No projects should be cleared until and unless there is credible cumulative impact assessment for all projects in any river basin and sub basin, which includes carrying capacity study. None of this was done in Uttarakhand and none is in place in any river basin of Arunachal Pradesh.
An urgent review of under construction and under planning projects should be taken up, stop projects awaiting such a review. The review should include various environment and river governance policies. Moratorium on dams and hydropower projects til above conditions are satisfied.
Certain rivers and certain high risk zones should be declared as no project areas in each basin.
In any case, there should be at least 5 km of free flowing rivers between any two projects. At least 50% of river flows in lean season and at least 30% of river flows in monsoon should be released on daily changing as environmental flows as recommended by IMG recently, pending project and river specific studies. This should be applicable for all projects, including existing and under construction projects.
Put in place system of early warning, forecasting and dissemination for all kinds of disasters, particularly those related to rainfall and landslides. It is technologically feasible to predict even cloud bursts at least 3 hours in advance, a Doppler radar system was sanctioned for Uttarakhand since 2008 that would have enabled that, but due to lack of coordination between NDMA, IMD and Uttarakhand government, this was not in place.
Put in place a clearly defined monitoring system in place that will give prompt report of actual rainfall events even as the event starts so that the downstream area people and administration can be alerted. This again was absent in Uttarakhand.
Protection and conservation of rivers, riverbeds and flood plains, including aquatic biodiversity.
Do not allow encroachment of riverbeds and floodplains.
Prepare clearly defined space for rivers, have river regulation zone in place and remove all illegal encroachments in river beds and flood plains in a time bound manner urgently through legislative, followed by executive action.
Do not allow unsustainable mining of riverbeds.
Do not allow blasting for any development activity (Uttarakhand Disaster Management & Mitigation Centre made this specific recommendation after the Rudraprayag disaster of Sept 2012 that lead to death of 69 people) as such blasting leads to increase in landslides.
Protection of catchments including forests, wetlands and local water bodies that can play the role of cushion during high rainfall events.
All states, including those in North East must have an active state disaster management authority in place that will have key role in all development decisions.
While rainfall and cloud bursts are natural phenomena, the disaster potential of such events directly depends on what we have done on ground over the years. Uttarakhand, by, allowing indiscriminate building of roads, buildings and hundreds of hydropower projects without doing basic assessments and participatory decision making processes, have allowed the disaster potential of current high intensity rainfall in the state increase manifold. While some in the media are calling this as Himalayan Tsunami, many people of Uttarakhand are seeing it as a trailer of such Tsunami, if Uttarakhand does not wake up, much bigger tragedy may await the state.
Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Jammu & Kashmir have gone rather too far down that road, but still can wake up and review its development plans and policies and possibly reduce the disaster potential in the respective states. Similarly Arunachal Pradesh has signed over 150 MOUs for big hydropower projects, each of them will entail big dam, long and huge tunnels, blasting, mining, roads, townships, influx of people, transmission lines and so on, without any credible assessment in place. These projects are being pushed under one pretext of another, including the China bogey.
Hydropower Dams in various stages in Arunchal Pradesh. Photo Courtesy: International Rivers
Other Himalayan states like HP, J&K, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur and Mizoram are following the same footsteps. This is surely an invitation to major disaster that will engulf whole of Himalayan region. For Uttarakhand and all Himalayan states there is still time to learn all the lessons that the Uttarakhand experience offers. This is also applicable to neighboring Himalayan countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and China (Tibet).
Notice the extensive deforestation and unstability of land at an under construction Teesta Hydel Project in Sikkim
If these are not learnt, what could visit Himalayas could actually make the Uttarakhand disaster like a trailer.
Himanshu Thakkar (ht.sandrp@gmail.com)
Landslides in Sikkim in 2012, following earthquake in 2011. Locals blame these on extensive blasting, tunnelling and deforestation for Teesta Hydropower Projects. Photo: Live MintTunnel for Teesta VI HEP in Sikkim, blasted in the mountains. Photo: Smair Mehta, International RiversDams underconstruction and planning in Teesta Basin, Sikkim. Map by SANDRPTunnelling at the 330 MW KishenGanga HEP, Gurez, Jammu and Kashmir Photo: Panoramia.com
Summary A month after its submission to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Inter Ministerial Group on Upper Ganga basin Hydropower projects and Ganga river in general is yet to be put in public domain. A detailed perusal of the report shows that the report is hugely biased in favour of large hydropower projects, and has not done justice to the task given to it or to the Ganga river, people or environment. Out of the three non government members (out of total 15 members) on the Group, Dr Veer Bhadra Mishra expired during the working of the group. Rajendra Singh has given a dissent note, not agreeing with the report in its totality. The “alternative view” note from Sunita Narain, the third non-government member, is not much of an alternative and is not in the interest of the river, people or the environment. However, the fact that none of the non-government members have endorsed the report speaks volumes about the credibility of the report.
The recommendations of the IMG report are an exercise largely in supporting the interests of hydropower lobby in the name of balancing the power & development needs of the region and local people. The IMG has actually attempted to make 69 large hydropower projects in the Upper Ganga basin a fait accomplice when only 17 of them are under operation and 14 are under construction. In many cases IMG has reached unscientific and unfounded conclusions. Some of the recommendations are also contradictory in some fundamental nature. In many cases IMG has made statements, and implied recommendations that are bad in law. In general, the report shows that IMG has poor understanding of the science of the rivers. Even where the IMG has sought to make some seemingly environment friendly recommendations, it is generally not serious about these recommendations.
A broad conclusion is inescapable that the IMG report (except the dissent note by Shri Rajendra Singh) is largely an exercise in deception, with a pro-hydropower bias. While this note points out key negative aspects of the IMG report, the IMG report is not without some positive aspects. The report gives a list of positive aspects of the IMG report on which there is a lot of scope for positive action, which the MoEF should initiate, while rejecting the report.
FULL TEXT
1. The Inter Ministerial Group (constituted by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests through an order issued on June 15, 2012) report has been submitted around April 22, 2013, but it is still not in public domain a month later. The report should have been promptly put in public domain as in the case of the HLWG report on WGEEP panel recommendation on the Western Ghats, which was made public the day after the submission of the report to MoEF. These comments[1] are based on the hard copy of the final report made available by a colleague[2].
2. The IMG final report has been endorsed by all members, except the dissent note by Rajendra Singh attached at Annexure X and a note on “alternate approach” from Sunita Narain, attached at Annexure XI. Shri Veer Bhadra Mishra, who was the third non-government member, expired during the period of functioning of the IMG group. The committee constitution was heavily loaded in favour of the government officers (ten of the fifteen members were government officials), so its independence was already in doubt. With none of the non-government members endorsing the report, the report has little credibility. This review tries to look at the report with an open mind.
3. While SANDRP as a group is critical of large, destructive and non participatory hydropower projects, it does not mean the group is against all hydropower projects. For example, if the projects were to be set up through a participatory and informed, decentralized, bottom up decision making process or if projects were to follow the recommendations of World Commission on Dams, such projects would certainly have greater public acceptance. That is not the case for any of the projects today.
4. The main TOR given to the IMG was to decide the quantum of environment flows for the upper Ganga basin rivers, keeping in mind the IIT (Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, the report was basically from some individual of Alternate Hydro Electric Centre of IIT-R) and WII (Wildlife Institute of India) reports on cumulative impact assessment of the projects in these river basins. However, IIT (Roorkee) report has been found to be so flawed and compromised (for details see: http://www.sandrp.in/hydropower/Pathetic_Cumulative_Impact_Assessment_of_Ganga_Hydro_projects.pdf) that it should have been rejected by the MoEF and the NGRBA. Even the MoEF’s Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects has been critical of the IIT-R report. However, since a member of the IIT-R was present on the IMG, it may not have been possible for the IMG to take an objective view of the merits of IIT-R report. It is however, welcome that IMG has relied on WII rather than IIT-R report while accepting recommendations on e-flows. WII report was better in some respects, though still suffering from some basic infirmities. Moreover, to set up an IMG to decide on the course of action considering these two reports (and any other relevant reports) was compromised at the outset and was an invitation for further dilution of the environment norms, considering the track record of the most of the members of IMG.
Ganga river flowing through a channel, diverted for the 144 MW Chilla hydropower project
5. The recommendations of the IMG report are an exercise largely in supporting the interests of hydropower lobby in the name of balancing the power & development needs of the region and local people. The IMG has actually attempted to make 69 large hydropower projects in the Upper Ganga basin a fait accomplice when only 17 of them are under operation and 14 are under construction. In many cases IMG has reached unscientific and unfounded conclusions. Some of the recommendations are also contradictory in some fundamental nature. In many cases IMG has made statements, and implied recommendations that are bad in law. In general, the report shows that IMG has poor understanding of the science of the rivers. Even
where the IMG has sought to make some seemingly environment friendly recommendations, it is generally not serious about these recommendations. All of these points are further elaborated in this note.
6. Cancelled projects & those on Bhagirathi Eco Sensitive Zone shown as under development Shockingly, even the projects like the Loharinag Pala, Pala Maneri and Bhairon Ghati that have been officially dropped are shown as under development by the IMG, see Annex VID! In fact in Table 12 and 13 IMG even calculates the reduction in power generation and increase in tariff at Loharinag Pala (among others) if the IMG recommended e-flows are implemented! The 140 MW Karmoli HEP on Bhagirathi, on a stretch that the MoEF has been declared as Eco Sensitive Zone, and on which the GOI has said no large hydro will be taken up, the IMG has actually suggested that the project can be taken up! The 50 MW Jadhganga project, very close to the Gangotri, is shown to be project under development by the IMG! These examples show how the IMG has played a role of supporter of the hydropower lobby.
7. Wrong classification of projects as under construction and under clearance projects IMG has divided the 69 hydropower projects in Upper Ganga basin (leaving our the Kotli Bhel 2, since it is on Ganga river and not on Bhagirathi or Alaknanda) in four categorie
s: Operating projects, under construction projects, under clearance projects and under development projects. It is here that IMG has done its biggest manipulation by classifying a number of projects as under construction when they are not and cannot be under construction. IMG classification of projects under clearances is equally problematic. IMG and even the “alternative View” by Sunita Narian says all these projects in first three categories can go ahead without any change, except the e-flows recommendations. This manipulation shows the stark pro hydro-bias of the IMG.
Dry Ganga river after the river is diverted for Chilla HEP. Photos by SANDRP
8. Manipulations about percentage length of river that the projects can destroy On the one hand, the IMG has recommended that “projects may be implemented so that not more then 60% of the length (of the river) may be affected.” There is no mention how they have arrived at this magic figure of 60%, what is the basis or science behind that magic figure. At the same time the IMG has said that if all the 69 projects were to be implemented than 81% of Bhagirathi and 65% of Alaknanda will be affected. Firstly these numbers are not correct if we taken into account the full length of the reservoirs and the bypassed river lengths by the hydro projects, in many cases the length of the submerged reservoir behind the dam has not been counted. Here we need to add the fact that the reservoir of the 70th Project on its list, the Kotlibhel 2 project will submerge parts of both Bhagirathi and Alaknanda rivers, which has also not been counted by the IMG. WII had to recommend 24 projects to be dropped, and even after that, WII assessed that 62.7% of the rivers would still be affected. However, the IMG has made no recommendation as to which of the projects need to be dropped (except vague review of the projects in Annex VI-D) to achieve that magic figure of 60%. This again shows how non serious IMG is, making this recommendation meaningless.
9. IMG double talk on distance criteria The IMG has said that “There is a clear need to ensure that adequate river length is available to meet the societal needs and River gets adequate time during its flow to regenerate itself” (emphasis added). This sounds good. But IMG has shown no will or interest in ensuring that this happens. In fact IMG exposes its understanding on this matter when it says, “the distance between two hydro projects should generally be such as to ensure that over-crowding is avoided”. What is over-crowding, how do you define it? This is a funny word IMG has used, not even bothering to define it. However, when it comes to implementation, dumping all these requirements, IMG has justified smaller distance (read zero distance) between projects where gradient is high. Now let us understand this: where gradient is high, if the distance left between the projects is less, will the time the river flows between projects be smaller or greater than if the gradient is low? Clearly, if gradient is high, for the same distance, the river will have less time to travel then if the gradient were low. It is in fact the time of free flow that is a crucial driving parameter for river to regenerate itself. So if the river were to have the same amount of time to flow between two points, with higher gradient, river will require more distance, not less. This again exposes the poor understanding of IMG members about science of the rivers.
The IMG even goes on to say that “distance will have to be smaller in view of technical requirement of the hydro power. This could result in continuity in some cases.” Firstly it is clear here again that IMG is basically catering to the hydropower lobby, it is completely non serious about the environmental issues. That is why after all those great sentences, it goes on to say that it is the technical requirement of the hydropower project that will be the decider! If technical requirements means no distance between two projects, then river can disappear, environmental issues do not matter! In case of many projects where the distance of free flowing river between projects is very little or nil and where the construction has not started or has not progressed much, there is today scope for change. For example in case of Vishnudgad Pipalkoti HEP on Alaknanda: the Full Reservoir Level of the VPHEP is same as the Tail Water Level of the upstream Tapovan Vishnugad HEP. This means that there is zero length of free flowing river between the projects. VPHEP does not have all the clearances and its construction has not started. Even for the upstream Tapovan Vishnugad HEP, the construction has not gone far enough and there is scope for change in both projects to ensure that there is sufficient length of free flowing river between the projects. IMG should have recommended change in parameters in this and other such cases, but it has done no such thing, it has shown no interest in any such matter! Even the “alternative approach” note in Annexure XI has not bothered to recommend such changes even while recommending 3-5 km free flowing river between two projects.
The IMG makes another unscientific statement in this context when it says, “With the recommendation of IMG for environment flow which will be available and which would have traveled throughout the diverted stretch, any significant gaps and large distance may not be required.” This is an unscientific, unfounded statement. Firstly where is the evidence that the environment flows that IMG has suggested would take care of the need for river to flow on stretches between the projects? Secondly, the need for river to flow between the projects to rejuvenate itself will also depend on the length of the rivers submerged by the reservoirs, and also depend on the biodiversity, the social, cultural and religious needs in addition to the ecological needs. By making such ad hoc unfounded statements devoid of scientific merit, the IMG has exposed itself.
While the IMG talks about the rich diversity of fish species and other aquatic diversity of the river, it has no qualms in saying that e-flows alone will address all the problems caused by bumper to bumper projects. As many including Government of India’s CIFRI (Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute) have concluded, Dams have been the primary reason for the collapse of aquatic diversity in India, not only because of the hydrological modifications and lack of e-flows, but also because of the obstruction to migration they cause, destruction of habitat during construction, muck disposal, trapping of sediments, destruction of terrestrial (especially riparian) habitats. But these concerns are not even considered by the IMG while saying that recommended e-flows will be able to solve all problems caused by bumper to bumper projects.
Dry Bhagirathi downstream Maneri bhali HEP Photo: Peoples science Institute
10. WII recommendation of dropping 24 HEPs rejected by IMG without any reason The IMG notes that WII has recommended that 24 hydropower projects of 2608 MW installed capacity should be dropped in view of the high aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. However, IMG decides to dump this WII recommendation without assigning any reasons. This again shows the strong pro hydro bias of the IMG. WII report says that even after dropping these 24 projects, at least 62% of the river will be destroyed.
It is shocking that projects like Kotlibhel 1B and Alaknanda HEP, which have been rejected by WII and Forest Advisory Committee, is considered as “under development” by IMG, when they should have been rejected. While the IMG Report talks of unique biodiversity of the Ganga Basin, Valley of Flowers and Nanda Devi National Parks, it still supports projects which will be affecting these National Parks like the 300 MW Alakananda GMR HEP, which was also rejected by the WII and FAC (twice).
As a matter of fact, of the 24 projects that WII report recommended to be dropped, the IMG has shown 8 as under construction and 4 as “projects with EC/FC clearances”. This is sheer manipulation, in an attempt to make them a fait accomplice. Strangely, the “alternative approach” note in Annexure XI does not say anything about this manipulations and in fact says the projects in Annexure VI-B and VI-C can go ahead!
11. Non serious recommendation about keeping six tributaries in pristine state IMG (Para 3.70) “recommends that six rivers, including Nayar, Bal Ganga, Rishi Ganga, Assi Ganga, Dhauli Ganga (upper reaches), Birahi Ganga and Bhyunder Ganga should be kept in pristine form and developments along with measures for environment up gradation should be taken up. No new power projects should be taken up in these River Basins.” This sounds good, but turns out to be like a joke, since firstly, IMG recommends construction of projects on these rivers that yet to be constructed! If these rivers are to be kept in pristine state then IMG should have asked for immediate stoppage of under construction projects and also time bound decommissioning of the operating projects on each of these rivers. In stead, the IMG report shows that projects are under construction on rivers like Assi Ganga (stage I and stage II projects each of 4.5 MW), Birahi Ganga (24 MW stage I project), Bal Ganga (7 MW stage II project listed in Annex VI B of IMG report, in addition to the 1 MW Balganga and 5 MW Balganga I project are also under construction as per IIT Roorkee report) and Bhyunder Ganga (24.3 MW stage II project) and IMG has (implicitly) recommended that these projects be allowed to continue, on rivers that IMG says it wants to remain pristine! Moreover, Rishi Ganga (13.2 MW project) and Birahi Ganga (7.2 MW) have operating projects on these rivers to be kept pristine! In addition, on Assi Ganga the 9 MW stage III project, is considered by the IMG as ready for development since it has some of the clearances.
Rishiganga HEP Photo: Ashish Kothari, Courtesy The Hindu
The IMG has noted that 70 MW Rishi Ganga Stage-1 and 35 MW Stage II Project are under development on Rishi Ganga (IIT-R report mentioned another project on Rishi Ganga, namely the 60 MW Deodi project, it is called Dewali project by WII report; WII report also mentions 1.25 MW Badrinath II existing project on Rishi Ganga) and 24 MW Birahi Ganga-II project is under development. But the IMG does not recommend dropping of these projects.
So at least five of the six rivers that the IMG claims it wants to stay in pristine state are no longer pristine! They have multiple projects, most of them under construction or yet to be developed and the IMG has not said that any or all of these projects should be stopped, cancelled and those under operation be decommissioned in time bound manner. Even on Nayar, the sixth small tributary that IMG said should be kept in pristine condition has a 1.5 MW Dunao project under development by UJVNL, as per the UJVNL website. It’s clear how non serious IMG is about its own recommendation. IMG has included Dhauli Ganga (upper reaches) in this recommendation, but has not even bothered to define which stretch of the Dhauli Ganga this applies to, again showing the non-seriousness of IMG.
In para 4.22 IMG says, “Specifically, it is proposed that (a) Nayar River and the Ganges stretch between Devprayag and Rishikesh and (b)… may be declared as Fish Conservation Reserve as these two stretches are comparatively less disturbed and have critically important habitats for long-term survival of Himalayan fishes basin.” If IMG were serious about this, they would have also said that Kotli Bhel II project should be cancelled since it is to come in this very stretch.
IMG’s claim that not having any more projects on these six streams will mean loss of generating capacity 400 MW is also not backed by any sort of information or list of projects to be dropped, it seems IMG is in the habit of making such claims and does not feel the need to back them.
12. IMG on environmental impacts of Hydropower projects One of the key TORs given to IMG was “to make a review of the environmental impacts of projects that are proposed on Bhagirathi, Alaknanda and other tributaries of river Ganga and recommend necessary remedial action.” What has the IMG done about this TOR? IMG wrongly claims (Para 4.18), “The environment impact of proposed 69 hydropower projects has been considered by IMG.” It has done absolutely no justice to this very crucial TOR. First thing IMG has done in this regard is to dump the WII recommendation to cancel 24 hydropower projects, without giving any justifiable reasons. The IMG has produced a set of guidelines for the hydropower projects, which have almost nothing new, they are certainly not comprehensive or legally binding. They miss the most important issues of inadequate environment impact assessment, inadequate public consultation process, inadequate appraisal, lack of accountable governance and compliance.
What is required is certainly not new set of guidelines. MoEF already has a long list of environment and forest clearance conditions, environment management plans and manuals. But there is no interest, will or willingness to achieve compliance in MoEF. IMG is obviously aware of this state of affairs. Yet they have happily prepared a new set of five page guidelines just to show they have done something about this TOR. The “alternative approach” in Annex XI also has nothing to offer on this score.
Muck Disposal directly into the Alaknanda river by Srinagar Project Photo: Matu janSangathan
13. Unwarranted conclusion about BBM methodology The IMG has said, “Considering environment, societal, religious needs of the community and also taking into account the status of river Ganga as national river, the IMG recommends adoption of Building Block Methodology (BBM) for assessing the e-flow requirement”. This is good and needs immediate and credible implementation.
However, IMG says this will be applicable only “in situation where the required conditions are satisfied and resources, time and data are available.” The only basis for this conclusion by IMG is the fact that WWF took three years to do a study of environment flow requirements of three sites along Ganga involving large number of experts. This is clearly an unwarranted conclusion since WWF was only doing it first time and has much less resources at its disposal than the government have. By arriving at this unjustified conclusion that has no basis, the IMG implies is that BBM methodology is required and is justified, but Indian rivers including the Ganga won’t get it since IMG (wrongly) thinks that “required conditions” are not satisfied. This is clearly wrong and unwarranted conclusion. The BBM can and must be applied in all cases immediately, including for all existing and under construction projects and cumulative impact assessments.
Also, while stating multiple times that BBM for three locations for Ganga took three years, the IMG does not go into the details of what caused this delay. One of the important reasons stated by WWF itself is that required data was not made available to them, which contributed to the delay. So it is the government itself that was part of the reason for the delay in WWF study, and now IMG uses that delay to suggest that BBM is not practicable for Ganga! If the Government has the will to implement a more holistic methodology like BBM, it can be done and IMG conclusion is unwarranted and wrong.
14. Unjustified pro hydro bias of the IMG The IMG has shown its pro hydro bias at several places. At one place it says that a balanced approach needs to be taken as “It is important to see that the flows do not result in exorbitant cost of power which the people of the region may not be able to afford. This would make these power projects uneconomic and un-implementable”. Firstly, as far as people in immediate neighbourhood of the projects are concerned, history of grid connected hydropower projects in India shows that local and particularly the affected people almost never get power benefits from projects but they surely suffer all the negative impacts. IMG is wrong as far as this section of the people is concerned.
Secondly as far as the people of Uttarakhand in general are concerned, where all the projects in Upper Ganga basin are situated, the state would get 12+1 % of free power. Since most of the projects are in central or private sectors, the rest of the electricity would mostly go outside the state. As far as this 13% free power is concerned, since it is supposed to be free, there will be no impact of e-flows on the tariff of such projects, except some marginal reduction in quantum of power.
Lastly, is it the bottom line of the IMG that projects must be economic and implemented at all costs, by hook or by crook, as is apparent from the above quoted sentence? How can that be the bottom line of IMG considering its TORs? Moreover, by making the projects economic and implementable by hook or by crook, the IMG seems to be saying that irrespective of the social, environmental, cultural, religious and even economic costs, the projects must go on. Thus what IMG is suggesting is that artificially low cost electricity must be produced for the cities and industries irrespective of any concerns of costs and impacts on people, environment, future generations and rivers including the national river! This is clearly a plea to export the water, livelihood and environment security of the people for the short term economic prosperity of far off city dwellers and industrialists. Is this acceptable?
15. What is environment flow? IMG should have provided a definition of what is meant by river and environment flow. Since it is linked with enabling the river to perform its various roles and services in the downstream area, it cannot be just limited to water flow downstream. The downstream river also needs silt and nutrition from the upstream and the biodiversity and geomorphology in the river crucially depends on such flows of nutrition and silt. However, IMG has said nothing on this count.
Dry River at Uttarkashi Photo: Open Magazine
16. Environment flows = aviraldhara? The IMG has said, “Environment flows in the river must lead to a continuous availability of water (aviraldhara) in the river for societal and religious needs.” This equation of aviral river with continuous flow of water is clearly flawed, since by that token even a pipeline has aviraldhara, but a pipeline is not the same as aviral River. For a river to be flowing aviral, continuous flow of water is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. A river means so much more.
17. No attempt at assessment of social, religious, cultural needs The IMG keeps talking about social, religious and cultural perspective and needs of the society from the river and so on. However, there has been no attempt to assess what exactly this means in terms of river flow, quality, content of flow across the time and space. More importantly, how is all this to be decided and who all are to be involved in the process. IMG just assumed that this has already been done by IITR and WII, which is flawed assumption, since WII or IIT-R has clearly not done any such assessment. So in stead of giving standard monthly flow release percentage across the rivers (releases to vary based on daily flow variations, this recommendation of daily changing flow is certainly an improvement from IMG), IMG should have asked for actual assessment of such needs across the rivers and IMG should also have given the process for arriving at such decisions. But while deciding social, religious or cultural needs, the IMG sees no role for the society, religious groups or cultural institutions.
In this context it may be added that the IMG has also not taken note of the legal stipulations like the order of the Allahabad High Court that says that no project can divert more than 50% of river flows existing at the point of diversion.
DevPrayag: Confluence of Alaknanda and bhagirathi Threatened by Kotli Bhel I A, IB and II Projects. Photo: Wikimedia
18. IMG recommendation during High Flow Season (May-Sept) The IMG has recommended 25% of daily uninterrupted (no clear definition is given how this will be arrived at) flow, with the stipulation that the total inflow in the river would not be less than 30% of the season flows. This is same as 30% of mean seasonal releases recommended by WII (para 8.3 of WII report, para 4.11 of IMG report) and also used by even Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects currently. The recommendation of releases based on daily flow is an improvement compared to the earlier situation, but its implementation is in serious doubt considering the weak compliance requirements from IMG.
It should be added here that IMG has not mentioned how the environment flow will be released. Just dropping it from the top of the dam won’t help, the flow must be allowed to flow downstream in an environmentally sound manner that is as close as possible to the flow of the river and helpful for the biodiversity in the river to link up from downstream to upstream and vice versa. Moreover, while deciding flows, IMG has largely followed the recommendations of the WII. However, WII conclusion of classifying Upper Ganga basin under EMC class C itself is flawed. IMG should have corrected this flaw, before concluding on environment flows.
19. IMG recommendation during Lean Flow season (Dec-March) The IMG has recommended (Para 3.48) release of 30% of daily uninterrupted river flows, this will go up to 50% where the average monthly river flows during lean season (Dec-March) is less than 10% of average monthly river inflows of the high flow season (May-Sept) and to 40% (however, Para 3.51 does not mention this 40% norm) where this ratio is 10-15%. While this is an improvement in the current regime, this remains weak considering that IMG has not done project wise calculations where 30, 40 and 50% stipulation is applicable, which it could have easily done at least for the existing and genuinely under construction projects.
20. IMG recommends lower flow for India’s national river compared to what India promises Pakistan in Jhelum basin The IMG has recommended 30-50% winter flows for all projects as described above. This in case of a river everyone recognizes as the heart and soul of India, a river that has such an important social, religious, spiritual significance and it has been declared as the national river. Let us compare this with what e-flows Indian government has promised to Pakistan downstream of the Kishanganga Project in Jhelum river basin in Kashmir. In a case before the Permanent (International) Court of Arbitration (PCA), Indian government has assured that India will release more than 100% of the observed minimum flow from the dam all round the year, and now in fact the government is considering even higher than 100% of the observed minimum flow all round the year. The PCA is yet to decide if what India has proposed will be sufficient or more water flow is required. So, as against the assurance of more than 100% of minimum flow at all times on another river, for the river flowing into another country; for the national river Ganga, for India’s own people and environment, all that the IMG recommends is 30-50%. On most winter days, KishengangaRiver downstream of the hydropower project, flowing into Pakistan, thus will have higher proportion of its daily flows than what Bhagirathi or Alaknanda will have.
Dry Ganga at Haridwar in August 2012 Photo: SANDRP
21. Monitoring and compliance of Environment Flows The IMG has said that effective implementation is cardinal part of its recommendations. This is good intention. However, by asking the power developer to be responsible for the implementation, the IMG has made the recommendations ineffective. IMG has chosen to ignore the fact that there is clear conflict of interest for the power developer in assuring e-flows, since the e-flows would reduce the power generation and profits of the developer. Its faith in IT based monitoring is also completely untested and there is no evidence to show that such monitoring will be free of manipulation. Secondly, to ask the MoEF to do annual review, that too only for first five years ignores the track record of MoEF in such matters where MoEF has shown no will, capacity or interest in achieving post-clearance compliance of the environment laws of the country. Thirdly, to require this only for projects above 25 MW shows the lack of understanding of IMG as to how important the smaller streams are for the water, ecology and livelihood security of the community in hills. Its recommendation of monitoring by an independent group is welcome, but lacks credibility in the absence of sufficient involvement of local community groups in such a mechanism.
22. Baseless assumption of low water requirement for fish in the Himalayan region The IMG has assumed that in the Himalayan region, the water requirement for fish in the river is less and hence the rivers here will not require as much water as the rivers do in the plains. This is completely unscientific, flawed and baseless assumption. The amount of e-flows needed has to be assessed not only based on the requirement of fish (IMG has not done even that assessment), but entire aquatic and connected terrestrial biodiversity across the seasons, in addition to the water needs of a river for providing the social and environmental services.
23. Suggestions that are bad in Law The IMG report shows several projects as “Under Construction” (Annex VI B) category, when they do not even have statutory clearances and hence cannot even legally start the work. This is a ploy to make these projects a fait accomplice when these projects are perfectly amenable to review and rejection since the project work has not started. In fact to categorise such projects without having all the statutory clearances (e.g. Vishnugad Pipalkoti does not have forest clearance) as under construction project is plain illegal.
24. Wrong representations The IMG has shown several projects in Annex VI C, as “Hydropower projects with EC/FC Clearances and others”, basically a ploy to push the projects that do not even have all the statutory clearances. None of these projects have all the statutory clearances and are certainly not in position to start construction and hence these projects are the ones where dropping of the projects or modifications in dam location, dam height, FRL, HRT length, e-flows, capacities etc are still possible. But IMG did not do it for any of the projects. As mentioned above, four of these projects have been recommended by WII to be dropped, and IMG should have recommended dropping these or should have categorized them as ‘to be reviewed’.
25. No mention of impact of peaking operation of hydropower projects The IMG has missed many crucial environmental impacts. One crucial one that it has missed is the issue of peaking operation of hydropower projects on the downstream people, environment, flood plains, geo morphology, biodiversity and other aspects of the river. This is very important since one of the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of hydropower projects is supposed to be that they can provide peaking power. However, peaking operation means sudden changes of huge magnitude of flows in downstream river, having far reaching impacts including those on safety of people, flood plain cultivation, impacts on cattle and property, impact on ecology, amongst many others. The IMG has completely missed this, which is very strange since this is a huge issue being taken up by people and campaigns in the North East against large hydropower projects there.
26. IMG cannot see through poor work of IIT-R It is well known that IIT-R report on Ganga basin study is of poor quality. In the IMG report there is an attempt to respond to only a couple of the criticism of IIT-R report, but IMG could not even see through the wrong facts presented by IIT-R report. For example, IMG report says, “The requirement of flushing during monsoon is not required in both rivers as all hydro projects except Tehri reservoir are run of river types where silt is not stored.” This is completely wrong. All the projects, even if run of the river, have storage behind the dam where the coarser silt will settle down and will need to be flushed out periodically. The dams are being provided with bottom sluices to facilitate this. A quick perusal of the EIA reports of some of the hydropower projects in the region shows that Vishnugad Pipalkoti, Srinagar, Kotli Bhel 1-A, Kotli Bheal 1-B, to name only a few all have proposed to provide bottom sluices for periodic release of silt accumulated behind the dam. Thus the contention that most projects do not need flushing is wrong. In any case, for all projects, the de-silting chambers would be releasing silt laden water and there is no attempt to assess the cumulative impacts of such actions. IMG’s attempt to provide scope for some defense for the IIT-R has clearly back fired on IMG! Moreover, even in case of Tehri, the biggest project in the region under review, IMG report has nothing at all, about it social, environmental impacts and performance, about its power generation, irrigation, water supply, flood control performance or even its silt management performance.
The contention that all projects except Tehri are ROR is entirely wrong and misleading. Even as per the WII report, out of the 69 projects, a whopping 13 projects are storage projects. This includes the biggest and most problematic projects like Srinagar, KotliBhel IB, KotlibhelIA, Koteshwar, Vishnugad Pipalkoti, Devsari, etc.
27. IMG on Srinagar HEP and Dharidevi Temple The IMG was also asked to “review the impacts of the Alaknanda (GVK) Hydro Power Project on flow of the River and the issues related to the temple relocation.” The IMG gave an interim report on this issue, which was so disappointing that Rajendra Singh and Late Shri Veer Bhadra Mishra both members of the IMG, gave a dissenting note, Rajendra Singh also suggested shelving the project. The IMG rejected the suggestion of its own members without giving any justifiable reasons.
DhariDevi Temple threatened by submergence
28. Time bound action plan for E-flows from existing projects The IMG says that the existing projects should also follow the suggested e-flows and this should be achieved in three years (Para 3.52). However, IMG should have been more clear about the role of different agencies (MoEF, state government, developers, state electricity regulatory commissions and power purchases) and what is the legal backing such a step will have.
29. Lack of understanding of conflicting projects and public protests The IMG report, Annex VI B shows 12.5 MW Jhalakoti (wrongly) as under construction project. In fact the Jhalakoti project has been recommended by WII to be dropped. The IMG seems to have no clue that Jhalakoti project is being strongly opposed by the local communities and no work has started on the project. The under construction status given by IMG for this project is clearly wrong. If the Jhalakoti HEP comes up then the existing 40 KW Agunda micro HEP will no longer be able to function. Many of the other projects including the Devsari and Vishnugad Pipalkoti HEP are also facing strong opposition, but the IMG has not taken note of these or any of the social impacts of the projects in the Upper Ganga basin.
Peoples protests against Large dams on Ganga. Photo: Matu Jansangathan
30. IMG onTOR on pollution abatement in Ganga It is good to see that IMG has suggested that “all users must be forced to plan for water needs based on what the river can spare, not what they can snatch.” However this should not mean an advocacy for more big dams and storages on the rivers. This seems to be the case when we read the IMG recommendation that says, “The government then has a choice to build storages to collect monsoon water for dilution within its territory or to ‘release’ water to rivers and make other choices for use in agriculture, drinking or industry”. Storages can come in many forms and sizes and IMG should be careful not to recommend more big storages on the rivers. The suggestion that “there will be a clear conditionality in Central government funding, which is matched to the quantum of ecological flow released by the state in the river” is welcome. Linking of JNNURM-II and National Mission for Clean Ganga to the above norm, incentivisation of use of innovative bioremediation and in-situ drain treatment are also welcome. However, IMG has shown no interest in understanding or tackling the real problem in river pollution: Lack of participatory, democratic governance in urban water and pollution control regime.
IMG has recommended in Para 6.7(i), “Ecological flow will be mandatory in all stretches of the river.” This is welcome. IMG goes on to suggest some norm for the urbanized stretches of rivers, but no norms are suggested for the non urbanized stretches of river in the lower river basin.
31. Report does not reflect the discussions in IMG? The dissent note by Shri Rajendra Singh, a member of IMG says that on several aspects, IMG report does not reflect what transpired in the IMG meetings. This is a very serious charge that puts a big question mark on the IMG report and its recommendations, particularly since Rajendra Singh is the lone independent voice in the IMG after the sad demise of Shri Veer Bhadra Mishra[3].
32. Incomplete project list The IMG does not seem to have full information about the existing, under construction and planned hydropower projects in the Upper Ganga basin in Uttarakhand. Some of the projects not listed in the IMG report include:
A. Operating projects under 1 MW: According to the website of UJVNL (Uttarakhand Jal Vidhyut Nigam), the state has 12 such projects with total capacity of 5.45 MW, see for details: http://www.uttarakhandjalvidyut.com/cms_ujvnl/under_operation1.php. Most of these projects are in Upper Ganga basin, though it is not clear how many.
B. UJVNL has larger list of schemes under development by UJVNL including in the Upper Ganga basin, not all of them are included in the IMG list, see: http://uttarakhandjalvidyut.com/bd2.pdf.
D. There is another “full list” of hydropower under development in Uttarakhand including sub-MW size projects, see: http://uttarakhandjalvidyut.com/bd5.pdf. Some of the projects here in Upper Ganga basin do not figure on IMG list.
One would expect better information base of the IMG than what they have shown.
33. No specific recommendation to save the prayags There are five holy prayags (confluence of rivers) along Alaknanda river in Uttarkhand, including Deoprayag, Vishnuprayag, Karnaprayag, Rudraprayag and Nandprayag.
Vishnuprayag has already been destroyed by the 400 MW existing Vinshnuprayag HEP of Jaiprakash Associates, rest would be destroyed by the projects listed by IMG. The IMG keeps talking about cultural importance of the rivers, but has not said a word about how it plans to save these culturally important confluences and how it plans to rejuvenate the Vishnuprayag already destroyed.
34. “Alternative View” in Annexure 21: How much of an alternative is it? In Annexure XI of IMG report, a note authored by one of the IMG members, Sunita Narian of Centre for Science is given, it is titled: “TOR (ii): Alternative View: Environment flow”. The Annexure opens with the line “The recommendations of this IMG report are not acceptable.” It is not clear if this sentence applies to all the recommendations of the IMG or about environment flows mentioned in the title or it applies to TOR (ii) that applies to all environmental aspects, not just environmental flows. The Annexure also deals with some issues besides environment flows, so one assumes this “alternative view” is about environmental aspects of hydropower projects.
The Annexure XI seems to give an impression that, principles of distance between dams, ecological flow and limit on % of river than can be “affected” will lead to “sound hydropower development, balanced for energy and environment”.
One of the three principles listed in the note says: “Distance between projects: 3-5 km”. The note does not say how this distance has been arrived at or how this distance is to be measured, the least the note should have mentioned was that this is not distance between projects but distances of flowing river between the Tailwater level of upstream and full reservoir level of downstream project. No elaboration is given about this criterion at all. Most importantly, there is not even any attempt to apply this criterion to the projects that IMG is supposed to look into. On the contrary, the note says that “The projects under construction can be built” (point 7(ii)) and “projects with EC and FC clearances can be taken up for construction” (point 7(v)). So in fact there is absolutely no application of the criterion to the projects on hand. The conclusion that this is half baked and non serious criterion is inescapable.
Another of the three principles listed in Annexure XI is: “Maximum intervention allowed in river length: 50-60 per cent”. Again there is no elaboration as to how these figures are arrived at, why there is a range, what is meant by “intervention”, which lengths it will apply and so on. Again, the note does not bother to apply this criterion to the rivers under review and actually says in point 7(ii) and 7(v) described above, that projects in Annexure VI (B) and VI(C) can go ahead without even checking if in that case this criterion will be violated or not. Again the conclusion that this is also a half baked and non serious criterion is inescapable.
The whole of the Annexure XI is basically devoted to application of the third principle: “Ecological flow regime: 30/50 per cent (high and lean period)”. About this, the annexure says: “The engineering design of the uninterrupted flow would take into account the need for sediment and fish transfer”, not clear how this will be achieved. The Annexure does not suggest any new measure of achieving compliance with its recommendations. The note mentions “design changes incorporated to maximize energy generation during high discharge season” but does not elaborate what these would mean.
Annexure XI says that IIT-R tried to suggest that e-flows must be low and in this effort did “big and large manipulation of data”. This is good. However, it would have been better if the full data and notes from IIT-R were annexed here to illustrate how the manipulation was done.
Bullet point 3 in Annexure XI reads, “It is important to consider that water of a river is similar to the coal or gas as raw materials used in thermal plants”. This statement needed to be qualified that the impact of taking out coal or gas from its source is not comparable to taking out water from the river, the latter’s impact is much more severe, since river is not equal to just water flowing in it.
Since Annexure XI does not raise objection to any other conclusions and recommendations of the IMG except the three principles mentioned above, it would not be incorrect to assume that author agrees to the rest of the IMG report. This, when taken together with the fact that at least two of the three principles in the alternative view note have not been applied to the projects under review, leads to the conclusion that there is not much of an alternative in “alternative view” note and this won’t help the cause of the river, people, environment or even sustainable and sound development.
35. Conclusion A broad conclusion is inescapable that the IMG report (except the dissent note by Shri Rajendra Singh) is largely an exercise in deception, with a pro-hydropower bias. While this note points out key negative aspects of the IMG report, the IMG report is not without some positive aspects. One of the positive aspect of this report is that possibly for the first time heads of central organizations like CWC and CEA have sat with some non government members to discuss some important subjects that have remained contentious for these official agencies.
However, as noted above, on most positive aspects, while IMG has been less than sincere, there is a huge potential to take the environment flow movement forward.
The MoEF and NGBRA should, considering all the above points, take some positive aspects forward. Some of the positive retrievable aspects of the IMG report include the following, on each of which there is a lot of scope for serious action:
Ensuring at least 50% E-flows in non monsoon months in all rivers.
Keeping some rivers in pristine form, stopping all ongoing and planned projects on suggested rivers and time bound decommissioning of existing projects on such rivers that are to be in pristine form. This should be immediately implemented on the rivers recommended by IMG and also in other selected rivers in all river basins.
Rejecting planned and under construction projects which have high impact on terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, as per score developed by WII Report as well as projects which irreversibly impact spiritual and religious places like rivers, prayags, places of worship and ghats.
Give deadline of one year and maximum of two years for all the existing dams, diversions and hydropower projects across the Ganga basin (& other rivers) to achieve the suggested e-flows with clear inbuilt mechanisms for monitoring and compliance with participation of river basin communities, as a first step.
Accepting BBM as the standard methodology for E-flows assessment, e-flows to mimic the river flows and involving communities as an important stakeholder in this methodology.
Ensuring Aviraldhara.
Ensuring rivers have adequate free flow time between projects to regenerate itself. Mandating at least 5 km free flowing river between any two projects as an immediate measure pending site specific studies and reviewing all under construction, under clearance and under development projects in the basin keeping this in mind.
Releases based on daily flows rather than monthly or seasonal averages in all rivers. Define uninterrupted flows to arrive at uninterrupted daily flows.
Monitoring of e-flows and other environmental compliance by independent group involving at least 50% of the monitoring group from local communities.
Assuring that e-flows through well designed fish passages (taking consideration of Guideline 7, Annex IX).
The IMG has recommended that a technical group may be made to study alternatives including the alternative suggested by Prof Bharat Jhunjhunwala that only partial dams across rivers may be allowed. This should happen expeditiously. The proposed projects should be stopped till this is done.
[3] One of the members of the IMG started discussing the report in public domain through her writings even before the report was in public domain, see: http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/training-engineers-not-ganga and http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/ganga-saga-part-ii-redesign-dams-not-rivers. This can create misleading impression about the report, when the readers do not have benefit of cross checking what the report is actually saying. The articles in any case are full of serious errors, for example it said: “Most of the proposed projects are run-of-the-river schemes, which are seemingly benevolent as compared to large dams”, not understanding that EACH of the so called run of the river schemes ALSO involves a dam, most of them are large dams as per international definition. It incorrectly said, “Run-of-the-river projects, which used flowing water as the raw material for energy”, in reality NONE of the so-called ROR projects generate power from flow of the water in the river, they all dam and divert the water away from the river to produce power. It also tried to dilute the impact of the projects on rivers (akin to killing of rivers) by saying projects “affect” rivers. It misleadingly wrote, “The hydropower engineers argued for 10 per cent e-flow” without mentioning that the EAC of MoEF is prescribing 20-30% of mean season flows. The article claimed that figures of water flow and tariffs were modified by IIT-Roorkee, but in the entire IMG report, (except the Annexure XI written by author of the articles), there is no mention of any of these. The article talks about engineers’ claims that “this source provides power during peak demand hours”, but as we noted above the IMG has not even looked at the impact of peaking generation. There is not even an attempt to understand how much of the current generation from hydropower projects is happening during peaking hours, or what is the generation performance of hydropower projects, issues that SANDRP has been raising for many years.
This post is based on a submission made by SANDRP and our colleagues on the HLWG Report on Western Ghats. 20th May 2013 is the last date to submit comments on this. Comments need to be sent to: amit.love@nic.in. We request groups and individuals to make as many submissions as possible.
Comments on HLWG Report with a focus on Water issues
SUB: Comments on the High Level Working Group Report with respect to water sector
This is in response to announcement posted on MoEF website about submitting comments on the HLWG report under the Chairpersonship of Dr. Kasturirangan. These comments mainly deal with water in Western Ghats: One of the most critical issues for Western Ghats States.
A lady collecting drinking water from a sacred grove in Western Ghats Photo: SANDRP
Unfortunately, we have to note that recommendations of the HLWG Committee in response to WGEEP Report as well as some of HLWGs omissions and commissions are detrimental to the well-being of rivers, wetlands and dependent communities in the Western Ghats and hence, for related sectors like ecology, water supply, irrigation, hydropower, etc. This is elucidated in the following points:
HLWG does not comment on any other issue related to water except hydropower:
While the Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu are facing multiple issues with respect to rivers, drinking water, irrigation, loss of biodiversity and livelihoods, dam-induced displacement, etc., the only issue HLWG report has commented upon is Hydropower. The WGEEP report has dealt with a number of issues related to the water sector from democratic community driven bottom up governance, watershed development, opposition to large dams in ESZ I and II, drinking water, fisheries, etc. However, the HLWG does not comment on any of these recommendations of the WGEEP, nor does it offer its own position on these. This is a serious lacuna in the HLWG Report.
In the absence of such recommendations, we request that MoEF adheres to WGEEP recommendations.
Fishing in Vashishthi Estuary, Western Ghats. Photo: SANDRP
HLWGs recommendations about Hydropower are ad hoc, unscientific and misleading
HLWG claims that all Hydropower is “renewable and clean.”
This is a completely incorrect statement and it’s surprising to see that it comes from HLWG. The world over, the myth of Hydropower as clean source of energy has been busted.[1],[2] Hydropower projects have huge impacts on environment, ecology, forests, rivers, biodiversity and livelihood security of the people. Studies have proved that methane emissions from reservoirs formed by hydropower dams in tropical countries can have significant global warming potential, methane being about 21 times more potent global warming gas than CO2. Dams emit methane at every draw down.[3] With tropical forests in the Western Ghats (WG) under submergence and otherwise destruction by such projects, this threat is even more serious. Already WG has some of the biggest hydropower plants in the country including the Koyna, Bhandardara, Ghatghat HEPs and three Tata HEPs in Maharashtra, Linganmakki, Gerisouppa, Bhadra, Tungabhadra, Upper Tunga, Talakalale, Kabini, Harangi, Chakra, Supa, Varahi, HEPs in Karnataka, Idukki, ldamalayar, Lower Periyar, Poringalkuttu, Sholayar HEPs in Kerala and Bhavani HEPs in Tamil Nadu. All these projects have not only contributed to greenhouse gas emissions, but have also adversely affected communities, forests, rivers and ecosystems in Western Ghats. There are numerous pending cases of rehabilitation from these dams (for example Koyna in Maharashtra) till date involving tens of thousands of people and communities in many areas are still suffering from erratic water releases from these projects (downstream communities near Jog Falls d/s Linganmakki).
Hydropower dams in WG are in many cases transferring water across the basin for power generation, making it unavailable of the original basin and its inhabitants (For example: Interbasin transfers from Koyna and Tata Hydropower dams in Maharashtra). Every hydropower project has finite life. Thus, for the basin dwellers and everyone else, Hydropower not much renewable either.
HLWG is not justified in giving a ‘clean and renewable’ certificate to hydropower.
Jog Falls on Sharavathy: Dried and diverted by the Linganmakki HEP in Karnataka Western Ghats. Photo: SANDRP
HLWG allows Hydropower projects in ESAs while not looking at performance of existing projects
While the WGEEP did not allow large dams and hydropower projects in ESZ I and II, HLWG has allowed hydropower projects in its demarcated ESAs. This is unacceptable. Western Ghats are already ravaged by dams and at least the areas of high biodiversity value should now be protected from the same onslaught. But the HLWG has rejected WGEEP recommendations about this. While doing so, they have not looked at the performance of the existing HEPs in WG. SANDRP has been studying performance of HEPS in India for some time now based on generation data from Central Electricity Authority. The performance of existing hydropower plants in WG is dismal as can be seen below:
In Koyna Basin, the per MW generation in 2010-11 has dropped by a huge 56.79% from the highest per MW generation achieved in the year 1994-95.[4]
In Kali Nadi projects, the per MW generation has dropped by 46.65% from the highest per MW generation achieved in 1994-95[5]
In Sharavathi Basin projects, per MW generation in 2010-11 has dropped by 37.60% from the highest per MW generation achieved in the year 1994-95[6]
Same situation is true for most other hydropower projects.
Most of these projects are performing far below the level at which the projects were given techno-economic clearances.
There is no assessment as to how much of the generation from such hydropower projects is during peaking hours. Nor is there any attempt at optimising the peaking power from these projects.
It is clear that there is huge scope to make the existing projects more efficient, rather than destroying ESAs in WG with more projects.
We request that in line with WGEEP report, large dams should not be permitted in ESAs of Western Ghats.
Recommendation about mitigating impacts of Hydropower are extremely weak
The HLWG has recommended 30 % of lean season flow as the minimum flow throughout the year as a conditionality for allowing hydro power projects in the ESA. This is contradictory to the recommendation for ecological flows by the HLWG. Ecological flows means trying to mimic the natural flow regime in the river as far as possible and that would include arriving at different seasonal flows based on studies and consultation with the river communities and other stakeholders, using the Building Block Methodology which even the Inter Ministerial Group on Ganga Basin has said is the most appropriate for India. Moreover, the IMG has recommended 50% releases in lean season flows, applicable for all existing projects. MoEF should accept these norms immediately for all existing projects.
The MoEF should be recommending ecological flows / environmental flows as in the WGEEP report and not minimum environmental flows and this should be determined through holistic methodologies like Building Block Methodology and local participation.
The HLWG recommendation of 3 km minimum distance betweendams is totally ad hoc, arbitrary and hence unacceptable. Firstly, the HLWG should have mentioned min 3 km of flowing river between projects. The minimum distance is river specific and would depend upon a basin level study of the river including the altitudinal profile of the river, the riparian forest status, the aquatic habitats and biodiversity, the present dependability and many such criteria. More significantly, the cascade hydropower dam menace which is destroying rives in Himalayas need not be replicated in western ghats. We would like to reiterate that no large dams should be allowed in the ESA of WG.
The MoEF should recommend for arriving at river specific studies while accepting 5 km of free flowing river between projects as minimum distance of free flowing river between projects. The best case is not to allow any further large dams in Western Ghats.
No flows in Sharavathy downstream Linganmakki Dam and Jog Falls. Photo: SANDRP
The HLWG does not stress the need for Environmental Clearance for Mini hydel Projects
Hydro projects less than 25 MW are currently exempt from Environmental Clearance due to a dangerous omission in the EIA Notification 2006. WG is currently facing a severe threat due to a flood of these unplanned cascades of Mini Hydel Projects. Ecosystems and communities in rivers like Netravathi, Kumaradhara, Krishna and Cauvery are facing impacts of these projects, many of which are fraudulent.[7] Netravathi has more than 44 mini hydel projects planned and under operation. Kerala has plans to set up around 100 mini Hydel projects on its rivers. The threat of these projects on river systems in Western Ghats is so high that in March 2013, the Karnataka High Court, has banned any new mini hydel projects in Karnataka Western Ghats[8].
WGEEP had recommended no mini hydel projects in ESZ I and II. HLWG has not done this. While the HLWG makes a rather vague statement “There is a need to redesign and reevaluate small hydropower projects – below 25 mw as these often have limited impact on energy generation and can lead to huge impacts on ecology’, it has not recommended that these projects should need an EIA and EC process, like it has said for Wind Energy. This is a very serious omission. SANDRP and many organizations have written about this to the MoEF several times.
The MoEF should amend the EIA Notification 2006 and include all hydel projects above 1 MW in its purview.
Pristine Forests set for submergence under the 24 MW Kukke Mini hydel Plant in Dakshin Kannada, Karnataka. Photo: SANDRP
The HLWG does not stress the need of Environmental Clearance (EC) for Drinking Water and Industrial supply dams
HLWG has not looked at water as a sector, but has only confined itself to hydropower. This has resulted in several loopholes. Many dams are being constructed in Western Ghats for Drinking Water and Industrial water supply. These are also exempt from EC process as per the EIA Notification 2006. Dams like Kalu, Shai, Balganga, Khargihill, Pinjal, Gargai are set to submerge more than 6000 hectares of forest in ESAs and Protected Areas in Northern Western Ghats in Maharashtra.
WGEEP Report had recommended no large dams in ESZ I and II, but the HLWG does not talk about these dams at all. Their impacts on WG forests and communities are entirely ignored. This is another serious lapse of the HLWG report.
The MOEF should amend the EIA Notification 2006 to include all large dams, irrespective of the purpose, including drinking and industrial water supply dams in its purview. No large dams should be planned in ESA of Western Ghats.
Ravines of Vaitarna already submerged by the Middle Vaitarna Dam near Mumbai Photo: SANDRP
HLWG does not recommend eflows from existing projects
Several hundreds of Irrigation, water supply, hydropower dams have transformed the nature of rivers and dependent communities in Western Ghats. While the WGEEP Report mentioned maintaining eflows from existing projects, the HLWG does not make any recommendation for eflows from existing projects.
Hydropower projects in Karnataka like Kali, Linganmakki have affected communities and ecosystems in the region, have driven some species to extinction. There is an urgent need to restore eflows in all WG rivers.
The MoEF should recommend that eflows should be assessed with holistic and participatory methodology like BBM and recommend e-flows for all dammed rivers in Western Ghats with time limit of one year.
HLWG does not apply its mind to dam decommissioning
The HLWG has chosen to ignore the recommendations on dam decommissioning. While the states have rejected the recommendation the MoP (Ministry of Power) and Central Electricity Authority has noted that dam decommissioning in a phased manner is worth considering.
There are several irrigation and hydropower dams in the Western Ghats which are severely underperforming or incomplete after two decades, or more than 100 years old, and/or unsafe. For example, several experts have opined than large irrigation projects in Konkan region of Maharashtra are severely underutilized. Tillari Interstate Project between Maharshatra and Goa which has come up affecting a wildlife corridor and which has still not rehabilitated its affected population, has a created irrigation potential of 7,295 hectares in Maharashtra of which farmers are utilizing just 162 hectares, according to the Govt Of Maharashtra’s 2012 White Paper on Irrigation Projects in Maharashtra. This underlines the redundancy of large irrigation projects in the WG.
The HLWG had an opportunity to relook at such projects, which it has not done. The HLWG could have noted that the state governments and the MoEF and MoP should start the process of evolving parameters / criteria towards the process of dam decommissioning.
The MoEF may please recommend the same.
Leaking Khadkhad dam Mahrashtra Western Ghats Photo: Pune Mirror
HLWG does not recommend free flowing rivers for WG
Rivers in Western Ghats are repositories of biological, ecological and cultural diversity. Rivers in WG harbor high endemism and diversity in freshwater fish. They also house several Sacred groves at river origins, river fish sanctuaries, etc., protecting rivers and fish. The freshwater biodiversity remains the most fragmented among all biodiversity and HLWG has taken no note of this state and further risks that freshwater biodiversity faces. The WGEEP had wisely followed a graded approach in tune with the ecological connectivity of river ecosystems. ln the HLWG approach, stretches of rivers would flow out of the natural landscape into the cultural landscape which is open to indiscriminate development and the chance for their restoration or protection would be completely lost out. A river cannot be protected in pieces like this.
Looking at the pressures from dams and water abstractions, there in an urgent need to conserve ecologically, culturally and socially important rivers in their free-flowing condition. This approach is well accepted globally and several countries have created specific legislations for protecting free flowing rivers[9]. It seems that the IMG Committee on Upper Ganga, in which Ms. Sunita Narain (Member of Kasturirangan Committee), was also a member has recommended that some six tributaries of Upper Ganga basin should be kept in pristine state. While rejecting WGEEPs recommendation about dam decommissioning or dam free rivers in the ESZs, HLWG has not recommended keeping even a single river in Western Ghats in its free flowing condition.
MoEF should identify ecologically, culturally and socially important rivers, based on community and ecological knowledge and conserve Heritage Rivers of Western Ghats in their free flowing condition for the current and future generations.
Seetha Nadi, free flowing river in Karnataka Western Ghats. Photo: SANDRP
HLWG allows Inter basin transfers in Western Ghats, without any justification or studies
The HLWG has agreed to inter basin transfers toeing the claims of some of the states. There are ample instances of failed interstate – inter basin transfers in the Western Ghats rivers which have turned into permanent scenes of conflicts like the famous Mullaperiyar, Parambikulam Aliyar, Siruvani interstate inter basin transfers between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The HLWG while acknowledging the need for ‘ecological flows assessment’ in rivers has failed to note that in all these inter basin transfers, the river / tributary has been completely diverted and has lost its ‘ecological flows’. The HLWG could have recommended a cumulative impact assessment of the existing inter basin transfers which would reveal the ground reality.
HLWG seems to have accepted the contention of states like Maharashtra: “This (stopping IBT) would be a problem, they explained, as many regions of the Western Ghats lie in the rain shadow area and need water to be diverted for irrigation and drinking.”
Reality is that, ALL the interbasin transfers happening in Maharashtra currently (through Koyna and Tata Hydro power projects, an amount more than 4 Billion Cubic Meters Annually) are transferring water FROM the rain shadow area of Krishna and Bhima basins TO water surplus regions in Konkan. If HLWG was concerned about water supply for rain shadow regions, it would have at least recommended that this transfer from deficit area to high rainfall area be immediately reviewed and reversed in a time bound manner. It has chosen not to, showing its complete ignorance of ground reality or its completely pro government and pro vested interests bias.
The MoEF should retain the recommendation for no more inter basin transfers as in the WGEEP report and ask for immediate review of transfer of water from deficit basins to high rainfall areas.
HLWG allows hydro projects in first and second order streams
The HLWG has not said no to hydro power projects in first and second order streams in ESA. Meanwhile the MoP, CEA and WAPCOS all agree that hydro power projects should not be permitted in these highly ecologically sensitive areas which are the ‘origin’ of Western Ghats Rivers.
The MoEF should retain the recommendation for no run of the river schemes in first and second order streams as in the WGEEP report.
HLWG offers no comments of on several water sector recommendations of WGEEP which have been supported by State Governments
Kerala and Maharashtra have accepted many of the recommendations of the WGEEP in water sector (page 14 section 2.3 – point 9) like catchment area treatment plan, protection of high altitude valley swamps, water conservation measures, rehabilitation of mined areas, improved river flows etc. It is surprising to note that the HLWG is silent on these very important measures and has not even endorsed these acceptable recommendations which can significantly contribute towards improving water availability in the Western Ghats.
The MoEF should follow these recommendations of the WGEEP.
HLWG takes an extremely biased stand about Athirappilly and Gundia Hydropower projects, rejected by the WGEEP
The WGEEP had categorically stated that the Athirappilly and Gundia Hydropower project should not come up in Western Ghats, looking at their huge impacts on biodiversity, several studies by local organisations and local opposition. However, ignoring all these, the HLWG has taken a very pro project stand on these projects, stating that they can be considered with some vaguely due process, which the state government would be happy to show they have followed it on paper. This is entirely unacceptable.
The MoEF should not allow Athirappilly and Gundia HEPs looking their impact on ecology and communities and in face of the strong local opposition that they are facing.
Athirappilly Waterfalls on the Chalakudy River Photo; SANDRP
The WGEEP process and report initiated a robust discussion about the paradigm of development and conservation in Western Ghats. Water and Rivers is a cross cutting issue connecting ecosystems and communities, rural areas and urban centers, providing goods and services and supporting freshwater biodiversity, which is most threatened currently.
A proactive position on conserving rivers in Western Ghats will go a long way in protecting and conserving myriad livelihoods and ecosystems that thus depend of them.
We hope the MoEF considers the recommendations made above about the WGEEP and HLWG Reports and helps conserving rivers of the Western Ghats for people and ecosystems urgently. The HLWG Report cannot be accepted the way it stands presently. As a step in this direction, we also suggest that WGEEP should get a formal chance to respond to the points raised about it in the HLWG.
Thanking You,
Yours Sincerely,
Himanshu Thakkar, Parineeta Dandekar, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, New Delhi and Pune (ht.sandrp@gmail.com , parineeta.dandekar@gmail.com)
Dr. Latha Anantha, River Research Centre, Thrissur, Kerala (rrckerala@gmail.com)
Central Water Commission is India’s technical organisation under the Union Ministry of Water Resources. It publishes National Register of Large Dams (NRLD), the latest version can be seen at: http://www.cwc.nic.in/main/downloads/New%20NRLD.pdf. This is a key document that provides information about large dams in India.
The latest NRLD seems to have been uploaded only this month, since for a number of states, it claims to have been updated till January 2013. The NRLD is certainly a useful document, the only list of large dams in India and it also gives a number of salient features of the large dams in India. SANDRP has been using this document and also been doing some analysis of the information available in the NRLD.
As per the latest edition, India has 5187 large dams (height above 15 m in most cases, height of 10-15 m case of some with additional criteria). 371 of these dams are under construction and rest have been completed. In case of 194 large dams in NRLD, we do not know the year of construction, which means most of such dams must have been built before independence.
NRLD is not an exhaustive list
NRLD follows the definition of large dams given by the International Commission on Large Dams for inclusion of dams in the NRLD. However, the NRLD is far from exhaustive list of large dams in India. Very significant number of large dams built for hydropower projects in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North East India, among other states, do not figure in the list, even though all of these would come under the definition of large dams as given in the NRLD. To illustrate from Himachal Pradesh, following dams are all under construction as per Central Electricity Authority, many of them in advance stages, but they do not figure in NRLD: Allain Duhangan, Kashang, Sainj, Swara Kuddu, Shongtong Karcham, Sorang, Tangnu Romai, Tidong. It’s a dangerous situation for safety issues, since many of them are under construction by private companies. For example, in December 2012 heavy leakage was detected in the surge shaft of the 1000 MW Karcham Wangtoo Project on Sutlej River in Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh. The project had to be shut down and the repairs are still going on. Had there been a serious mishap at the project the impact would be also felt by the cascade of projects downstream, including the 1500 MW Nathpa Jakhri HEP (India’s largest operating hydropower project), 412 MW Rampur HEP, 800 MW Kol Dam HEP and the Bhakra complex further downstream.
The case of missing dams
Earlier in 2010 and 2011 we filed a number of applications with the CWC under the Right to Information Act to ask them how a very large number of dams that were listed in earlier NRLD of 1990, 2002 (both printed versions) did not figure in the NRLD 2009 and many of the large dams listed in 1990 also did not figure in NRLD 2002. The CWC response in most cases was to transfer our RTI application to the relevant states, stating that CWC is not responsible for the information in the NRLD, it only compiles the information given by the respective states.
This was far from satisfactory response from India’s premier technical water resources organisation. Was CWC acting only as a post box on even such a serious issue of listing of large dams? It was not applying its mind to the information supplied by the states, not raising any questions, nor clarifying the contradictions and gaps with respect to the earlier editions of NRLD? Needless to add, this reflects very poorly on the CWC. Here it should be added that CWC is also responsible for the monitoring policies and practices related to the safety of dams in India as also a number of other aspects. What kind of diligence can we expect from CWC under these circumstances? Our analysis then also showed that many dams that should have figured in the earlier versions (considering the date of completion stated in the subsequent editions of NRLD) were not there. Again our RTI applications in such cases were transferred to respective states. We did get some response from Central Water Commission and Maharashtra, which was far from satisfactory. In case of over a hundred dams, the CWC Director, Design and Research Coordination Directorate accepted the errors in NRLD and promised that “Data entry errors/ omissions as indicated above will be rectified”.
Where are our dams located?
A quick review of the latest NRLD raises some fresh questions of the NRLD. In this exercise we just wanted to check how many dams are there in different river basins/ sub basins. This is an important question from a number of perspectives including cumulative impacts, optimisation of dam operations, hydrological carrying capacity and cumulative dam safety issues, to name a few. We through this would be simple enough exercise. But when we started looking at the 5187 large dams of India listed in NRLD, we found that in most cases, there is no name for the river on which the dam is constructed. When counted, we were shocked that in case of 2687 or 51.8% of large dams of India, the NRLD does not mention the name of the river. In most cases they just write “local river” or “local Nallah” or the box under river is left blank. Under the circumstances, it is not possible to get a clear picture of any river basin, nor about the cumulative impacts or safety aspects or possibility of optimisation of the dams in any one river basin. The absence of such basic information reflects very poorly on the quality of NRLD, and on the CWC and respective states.
Worst states
India’s largest dam builder state, namely Maharashtra, has the largest number of dams for which it does not know the name or location of the rivers or tributaries. Out of 1845 large dams in Maharashtra, in case of 1243 dams, Maharashtra does not know the name of the rivers! That means in case of 67.37% of its dams, Maharashtra does not even know the names of the rivers. It is not just for the old dams, but even for 81 of the dams completed after 2000, Maharashtra does not know the names of the rivers. Even for relatively larger 61.19 m high Berdewadi dam (completed in 2001) and 48 m high Tarandale dam (completed in 2007), the names of the rivers are now known.
Madhya Pradesh is worse than Maharashtra, it does not know the names of the rivers for 90.17% of its dams (817 dams out of total of 906). In percentage terms, Chhattisgarh is worst as it does not know names of the rivers for 227 of its 259 large dams. These three states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh collectively do not know the names of the rivers for 2287 of dams in NRLD. Some of the other states that should also share the “honours” here are Gujarat (138 dams out of 666 for which names of rivers are not known), Andhra Pradesh (124 out of total of 337) and Rajasthan (71 out of 211 large dams).
It is a disturbing situation that the agencies that are responsible for our large dams do not even know the names of the rivers (every river in India has a name, so if someone were to argue that the rivers do not have names, it won’t be acceptable excuse) on which they are located. Without the names of the rivers and locations of the various dams on specific rivers, we cannot even start looking at the crucial issues like dam safety, cumulative social and environmental impacts, hydrological carrying capacity and optimum utilisation of the storages created behind the dams. We clearly have far to go to even start knowing our dams and rivers.
The Union Ministry of Water Resources has invited comments by March 31, 2013 (comments to be sent to: nwp2012-mowr@nic.in) on its Draft Hydro-Meteorological Data Dissemination Policy 2013 based on the document available at: http://mowr.gov.in/DraftHydrometlDataDisseminationPolicy_2013.pdf. This is indeed a welcome move. Since there has been no publicity of this notice, we assume that the policy has just been put up on the MWR website on March 7, 2013.
PREAMBLE The preamble to the policy should also mention that the National Water Mission of 2008 and the Draft National Water Policy 2012 (final version still not available on MWR website, typical of the MWR functioning) also require transparent data sharing policy.
LANGUAGE OF DRAFT POLICY AND PERIOD OF COMMENTS The three week period provided for comments is too brief and the policy is also not available in languages that majority of people of this country speak and understand. This is an issue that is of interest to majority of people of the country. Hence the draft policy should be translated into local languages and disseminated widely before setting a reasonable deadline for inviting comments.
UNCLASSIFIED RIVER BASIN INFORMATION The policy should mandate the MWR, CWC, CGWB, India Meteorological Department and all other organisations that are involved in such data collection to put all unclassified hydro-meteorological information promptly in public domain. This is also the requirement implied by the section 4(2) of the RTI act, which the draft policy quotes. United States Geological Society, the agency of USA that is in charge of gathering such data in the US is making this available to the mobile phone users through a publicly available application, see: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/45658. The qualification now put in section 6.1 of the draft policy that the information even in unclassified basins only after “after validation and to the extent published in Water Year Book, Water Quality Year Book, Water Sediment Year Book, Ground Water Year Book” is clearly unacceptable. CWC takes years to publish its year books and the information cannot be held secret till CWC and CGWB find time to make their year books public. About the validation issue, the information promptly put up can say that this is unvalidated information and validated information an be put up after validation. This is even now standard practice adopted by number of agencies like Central Electricity Authority who put up the “tentative” monthly generation reports first and actual reports later on (see: http://www.cea.nic.in/monthly_gen.html).
CLASSIFIED BASINS INFORMATION It is good to see that there is no blanket ban on making public hydro-met information for the classified river basins and there is some application of mind to make some of it public. However, this is still far from sufficient. In the classified basins section, you can say that following categories of data should be made public:
(1) Data pertaining to any “public interest” project in the basin, public interest being defined as per say the Land Acquisition Act, any project where land is compulsorily acquired;
(2) Data related to any project that is defined as a public project under the RTI Act;
(3) Data related to any project being defined as Category A or B1 projects for EIA under the 2006 EIA Notification;
(4) Data related to any project that requires forest land;
(5) Data related to any irrigation, drinking water, flood control project and data related to any hydropower project as all of them are supposed to be public purpose projects. All information that is necessary for assessing and understanding cost benefit, social and environment impact assessment of hydropower projects, dams, diversions, information necessary for assessing and understanding disaster management plans including dam break analysis and such kind of information should be in public domain.;
(6) Data related to any project or intervention that can cause significant impact on the local populations or ecology, and
(7) Any data or information that is made available to any private developer or commercial interests.
(8) All information about the water flow at smaller sub basins of the classified basin should be in public domain, as this is very useful for all water related planning, decision making and analysis.
(9) All information shared with the neighbouring countries should be in public domain.
(10) Information about functioning of all transboundary cooperation projects, plans and committees should be in public domain.
INFORMATION SHARED BY NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES The policy should also make it clear that information shared by the neighbours with India, particularly relevant for people in terms of information related to floods, water flow and water quality etc should also be promptly available in public domain. What is the use of flood forecasting information if it is not available to those who are in the areas that are vulnerable to flood risks that this information is pertaining to?
ORGANISATIONS OTHER THAN CWC AND CGWB There are a large number of organisations besides CWC and CGWB that are also involved in collecting hydro-met information, including IMD, state government, BBMB, NHPC, NEEPCO, SJVN, THDC and private sector hydropower developers. The policy should be pertaining to all such organisations. All information gathered by IMD should be in public domain, in all basins.
METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION In addition to actual data, the methods of data collection should also be available in public domain, so that the information users can also understand the implications of such methods for the accuracy or otherwise of such data. The methods deployed related reports by CWC, CGWB, MWR and others in ensuring the accuracy of the data, including third party evaluation should also be in public domain.
GOOD OPPORTUNITY This is a good opportunity to make the functioning of the ministry of water resources also transparent, it would hugely help improve the image of the ministry. The National Water Mission and new Draft National Water Policy also talk about making available all relevant policy and document in public domain promptly. However, this is yet to happen. We hope you will give due consideration to these comments and accordingly change the policy.
The MoEF is seeking comments on “Report of the Committee to formulate objective parameters for identification of inviolate forest areas”. 23rd Feb is the last day! The comments are to be sent to secy-moef@nic.inwith subject line “Comments on “Report o the Committee to formulate objective parameters for identification of inviolate forest areas”” as per announcement on MoEF website.The report of the committee can be found at: http://moef.nic.in/assets/Report_on_Inviolate_Forest_area.pdf
Looking at the highly unacceptable nature of the report as it now stands, SANDRP (and its partners) have sent the following letter to the MoEF. We urge as many people to send in comments on this report.
Subject: “Comments on “Report o the Committee to formulate objective parameters for identification of inviolate forest areas”: Faulty and exclusionary process to determine criteria for the declaration of inviolate forest areas with respect to coal mining
Dear Ms. Natarajan and Dr Rajagopalan,
We the undersigned would like to put forward our strong objection to the process followed by the MoEF in the drafting of the above mentioned criteria (Report of the Committee to Formulate Objective Parameters for Identification of Inviolate Forest Areas, July 2012) and the short-sighted nature of the approach to identify which forests of India are to be exposed to exploitation by coal mining. Here we would like to point out that the GOM that asked for the expert committee report on this issue was the GOM for environment and development issues in general and if the specific areas need protected since they are inviolate, they should also be inviolate for all purposes and projects?
This process should be open to public input and engagement, and highlighting that any criteria must take into account the multifaceted nature of human-forest interactions in the country and the millions of livelihoods that depend on the country’s forests, aside from issues of forest cover, forest types, biodiversity, wildlife and endangered species and areas, intact landscapes and hydrological value. Some key missing issues include livelihood issues, cultural issues and interlinking issues with other areas. Another set of parameters missing are: seismically active, flood prone, erosion prone, coastal and such other vulnerable areas. Areas where tribals are in majority should also be excluded without free, prior and informed consent of all the gram sabhas in the region. It is amazing that the social and democratic governance issues get no place in the parameters.
The grids are not being assigned values of eco sensitivity as per the Pronab Sen Committee report or as per the methodology followed by the WGEEP for the Western Ghats.
Issue of carrying capacity and cumulative impact assessments and linkages across the areas are key issues.
The MoEF has kept this process secretive and opaque. By keeping this process behind closed doors and only at internet level in English language, the MoEF has made this process to determine “forest trade-offs” extremely exclusive, expert-driven and narrow in scope. This is contrary our constitution’s stated objectives of upholding democracy and promoting inclusive growth. The fact that this report was finalised in July 2012 and yet only uploaded in the public domain on January 24, 2013, with a period of less than one month for comments, is unacceptable and indicative of the opaque manner in which this critical issue has been approached.
Our overarching and firm objection is that the MoEF has adopted a non-participatory and undemocratic approach of arriving at these parameters, preferring to work behind closed doors. Our first demand therefore is that these parameters be opened up for extensive public debate, scrutiny and contribution, in such a manner as to hear from those people and organisations that stand to be most affected. This process, of course, cannot be accomplished in less than a month, so we are asking that a new process to achieve the same be announced. Some essential parameters of the process include: translation of the report in local languages, facilitation to ensure that it reaches the communities concerned and affected and a credible independent and transparent process for getting inputs, the process should also be transparent to show how the inputs were used.
Without prejudice to the above, we would also like to raise strong substantive concerns related to the parameters that have been suggested, which go beyond the issues of process stated above. While the suggested criteria appear to recognise the importance of forests for their biological, landscape, hydrological, wildlife and forest cover and forest type values, they are completely silent on the issue of the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, their cultural issues and also the inter-linkage issues. As you are no doubt aware, India’s forests are a critical survival resource of millions of Indians. These livelihoods are invariably severely compromised, if not destroyed entirely, by mining, dams and other activities that destroy the forests.
Such a contradictory approach to India’s forests devoid of their socio-economic context is disconcerting and is also illegal in the context of forest rights act, PESA, Scheduled areas act and Panchayat Raj act. For a country which has a large part of its population dependent directly or indirectly on forests, the future of these same forests cannot be determined solely through the parameters listed in the report.
The proposed system of weights/scoring is also faulty and arbitrary. The system of averaging the score rigs the process such that a high score on any one parameter (for example, areas notified as Conservation Reserves) is not sufficient to protect the area. By stating that only areas with an average score above 70 will be considered inviolate, the system is in effect discounting the need to protect any area that scores less than 70. This includes, by the committee’s proposal, areas outside the PA network with more than 5 Schedule I species, or areas with occasional wildlife presence, or most Dry Deciduous Forests. The vast majority of wildlife corridors in Western, Central, Eastern, Southern and North Eastern India will fall in these categories.
Identification of Biodiverse areas through IIRS Data While IIRS data can be one of the useful tools, it cannot be the only one for selection of biodiverse areas. Information and knowledge about the local biodiversity through the involvement of the local communities, academics and civil society should also be used in this process. Under the National Biodiversity Authority Act, Peoples Biodiversity Registers were mandated. Hundreds of villages across India have worked on these registers and documented their biodiversity. The current report cannot just chose to neglect all these institutional and legal mechanisms in place
A relevant question in this regard is: Do we have sufficient information about for example biodiversity in various Himalayan and Western Ghat forests? New species are being discovered every month even without a concerted effort from the government. Hence, total dependence on IIRS data will be a blunder.
Wildlife value There is no mention of the aquatic biodiversity in this subject head or anywhere else in the document. Aquatic biodiversity also needs to be taken note of and needs protection. Particularly in the context of protected areas, it needs to be recognised that the aquatic biodiversity within the protected areas would be affected by interventions in the aquatic sources, upstream and downstream of the protected areas and thus would need protection in that respect. Secondly, we have very few protected areas for aquatic biodiversity and we need many more of them.
Hydrological Value In the committee report there is mention of maintenance of forest cover in the catchment of only first order perennial streams. This, though a step in right direction, is only limited step. It needs to be recognised and understood that the natural forest cover in the catchment of all streams would be of equal importance since destruction of such forest cover has implications for hydrological flow pattern in the downstream areas, aquatic biodiversity in the downstream streams, silt flow patterns in the downstream flows and all the connected water-fish-food-energy securities for the downstream areas.
This complexity is missed when the suggestion is to declare only the following areas as inviolate areas:
1. The directly draining catchment of the first order streams that are used as drinking water streams for towns and villages,
2. Areas located in direct draining catchments of the first order perennial streams feeding the irrigation and hydropower projects,
3. Areas located within 250 m of the banks of the perennial streams/ rivers, boundary of important wetlands (not clear what is the definition of important wetlands, are all wetlands with area more than 10 ha to be considered as important wetland, is river and its floodplain included in the definition of the wetland?) and storage reservoirs of water supply/ irrigation/ hydropower/ multipurpose projects (does it mean this applies to all natural and man made reservoirs of India, since all such reservoirs are used for one or the other purpose listed here?).
There is also contradiction when, while on the hand areas within 250 m of the banks of perennial streams and rivers is supposed to be inviolate (and thus get a score of 100), in section 3.6.1 it is suggested that areas within 100 m of the major seasonal streams or rivers should get a score of 70. The trouble is, we do not have ready made baseline data or clear definition as to what areas are supposed to be included when it is mentioned “banks of perennial rivers and streams”. Secondly, there is no clarity as to what would be called a seasonal or perennial river. For example, there are rivers that were perennial but has become seasonal because of human interventions. Then there are some rivers that were seasonal, but have become perennial due to the community conservation actions.
Moreover as far as hydrological value is concerned, the sustainable existence of value for any sq km grid area would actually depend on what is going on in a much wider area, almost whole of the catchment and also what is happening in the downstream. This reality does not seem to be captured by the suggested methodology. It would not make sense to give value in this sense to only the specific grid, but to protect that much larger area would need to be given implied value and any decisions would need to be keep in mind such inter-linkages.
The inter-linkages are also important for the implied change in pressures on specific grid element when decisions lead to violation of value of linked grid elements.
Community conserved areas: Across India, traditional communities have protected stretches of forest, grasslands, wetlands and river through community conservation. As India hosts the CBD this year, we cannot simply neglect Indigenous Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) even as a signatory to the CBD. All community conserved areas should be declared as inviolate zones.
FragmentationSimilarly, the parameters do not deal effectively with the critical issue of fragmentation of forests as a result coal-mining related infrastructure and ancillary activities – roads, railways, power lines etc. If some areas are recognised as inviolate and the adjoining areas are opened up for mining, there will be demands on the adjoining forests for ancillary infrastructure. Fait accompli arguments will be advanced, as is currently the practice among industry proponents. Any discussion on excluding mining from critical forest areas needs to take on board cumulative impacts of the land use change which is likely to take place. The MoEF needs to engage with this critical question through widespread debate and consultation as a first step.
Faulty Decision Rules: Decision Rule 1: They have not included already identified ecologically sensitive areas.
Decision Rule 2: A score of 70 is way too high for determining that the grid is inviolate. The rule should be that any area that gets over 70% score with respect to any one of the parameter should be inviolate area.
Decision Rule 3: Only if 90% or more grid from any coal blocks are outside inviolate zone, should there be consideration for such block for mining.
Compliance A key question in this regard is, who will monitor and ensure that the inviolate forests will remain inviolate? Considering the past track record of the bureaucracy in MoEF, there is little credibility of their ability or interest in keeping such areas inviolate. The example of areas declared earlier as no go areas for mining and how almost of them are now gone is fresh in the minds of the people. We need a credible mechanism involving the local people in ensuring compliance of the decisions.
Keeping in mind all of the above, we demand that:
a) The above mentioned criteria be opened up for more detailed scrutiny and debate with an acceptance of the multiple roles played by our forest areas. This process (some essential elements of the process are mentioned above) must be inclusive and broad-based, in contrast to the exclusionary process followed thus far.
b) That the ministry uphold the spirit of environment justice and the need to safeguard the livelihoods of forest dependent communities as also their cultural issues when making decisions on forest diversion.
c) That no further forest diversion for mining should be allowed until the conclusion of a transparent and open process as specified in point a) above. This is especially important given the growing conflict in forest areas.
d) Any further criteria setting process be inclusive and broadbased rather than the exclusive and expert dominated processes like is in the present case. This goes completely against the government’s constitutional commitment to being a sovereign, socialist republic.
We look forward to your response and the announcement of an open consultation process on the need to protect our remnant forests from coal mining and other activities in forest areas.
The latest NRLD seems to have been uploaded only this month, since for a number of states, it claims to have been updated till January 2013. The NRLD is certainly a useful document, the only list of large dams in India and it also gives a number of salient features of the large dams in India. SANDRP has been using this document and also been doing some analysis of the information available in the NRLD.
SANDRP 