Centre says no to hydro project in Uttarakhand

The environment ministry has rejected a major hydro project planned on river Gori Ganga in Uttarakhand, saying it would destroy the valley’s fragile ecosystem.

Updated on: Jun 17, 2010, 23:17:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The environment ministry has rejected a major hydro project planned on river Gori Ganga in Uttarakhand, saying it would destroy the valley’s fragile ecosystem.

The ministry’s Forest Advisory Committee shot down the National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC) proposal to construct a 261MW power plant on the Gori Ganga, which finally merges with the Ganga.

The corporation had proposed diversion of 217 hectares of forest for construction of the Rupsiabagar-Kasiyabara hydro projects in Pithoragarh district. The government has planned eight major and 18 minor hydro projects on the 107 km-long river.

More than 50 villages on the river bank had alleged the river would dry up, affecting their livelihood. Once all the projects are implemented, all the river water would be diverted through small tunnels, turning the area into dry land.

The forest committee said the project was proposed in a “virgin wilderness area having high sensitivity to erosion” and that its construction would only make it difficult for the Gori Ganga (also known as white Ganga) to reach the upper Nanda Devi range, where it eventually becomes the Ganga.

The panel also observed that the wildlife management plan prepared for the project was not sufficient.It recommended the proposal may be rejected as it was located in a highly ecologically sensitive wildlife habitat.ydro project in Uttarakhand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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