China counter: Arunachal to get mega hydel project

China's bid to have big hydel projects along the Indian border in north-east may witness a counter with environment ministry set to approve 1,750 MW Demwe hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh.

Updated on: Jan 26, 2012, 21:50:51 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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China's bid to have big hydel projects along the Indian border in north-east may witness a counter with environment ministry set to approve 1,750 MW Demwe hydel project in Arunachal Pradesh.

China has planned to build at hydel project in Zangmu, 140 km south-east of Tibetan capital city of Lhasa in a bid to tap the hydro potential of Brahmaputra river. The river flows about 1,625 kms in Tibet, 918 kms in India and remaining 363 kms in Bangladesh before submerging into Bay of Bengal.

Arunachal Pradesh government has planned hydel projects on five major rivers in the state, which finally drain in Brahmaputra, to generate over 50,000 MW of power. Many of these projects are stalled because of protest against them in Assam claiming that these projects will dry the river in down stream areas.

But, the environment ministry is likely to approve one of these projects, Demwe Lower hydel project in Lohit district of the state despite it being rejected by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife headed by minister in-charge Jayanti Natarajan.

The committee had rejected the project claiming that it will adversely impact wildlife in Kamleng wildlife sanctuary. Contrary to the committee's view, the ministry officials say there will be no submergence of the sanctuary even when the reservoir is full. The project has already received environment and forest approval, mandatory for making a project operational in a forest area.

Natarajan has reportedly decided to issue an order overruling the standing committee's decision after Arunachal chief minister Naban Tuki met her recently. The CM argued that exploiting hydel potential was an important economic incentive of the state, which is required to protect forest covering 70 % of the state's geographical area. Tuki was also of the view that hydel projects in Arunachal were a key to counter China's plans to develop mega hydel projects in Tibet.

Government sources expect the minister to issue an order regarding Demwe project this month paving a way for clearance of more hydel projects in the state.

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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