Green minister's no to new hydel projects on Ganga

With cloud burst creating havoc in Uttarakhand, the environment ministry has decided not to consider new hydel projects and review the existing projects ones on river Ganga and its tributaries in the state.

Updated on: Aug 7, 2012, 23:29:46 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With cloud burst creating havoc in Uttarakhand, the environment ministry has decided not to consider new hydel projects and review the existing projects ones on river Ganga and its tributaries in the state.

There has been a view that construction of dams for hydel projects on tributaries of river Ganga such Asi Ganga has resulted in blocking the flow of water thereby creating havoc for locals and property. Around 12 people died and about 50 went missing after the cloud burst in higher reaches of the state.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan told HT it was difficult to “envisage any new hydel project on river Ganga and its tributaries” considering increasing concern over its flow.

On the projects under implementation, the ministry will take a view after a cumulative environment impact assessment of around 77 projects on river Ganga and its tributaries is done. “We have to do a proper appreciation of environmental aspects to restore flow and purity of the national river,” the minister.

The government has already constituted a committee of experts under planning commission member B K Chaturvedi to examine impact of hydel projects on river Ganga and recommend remedial measures based on report of a consortium of Indian Institutes of Technology. The committee has met once and deliberated on the key aspects of Ganga for future deliberations.

“I don’t want to pre-judge work of that committee,” she said, “my person view as Environment Minister is that there cannot be more hydel projects on river Ganga”.

The flash floods has come as a blessing in disguise to those opposing hydel projects on river Ganga and has put the government on the back-foot. The government scientific experts attributed environmental degradation including cutting of forests in Uttarakhand hills as a prime reason for cloud burst having such an impact.

The view of locals that slow pace of rehabilitation and restoration work at National Thermal Power Corporation’s Lohari Nag Pala dam --- scrapped by Central government in 2010 --- contributed to the devastation in certain regions has been backed by the ministry.

The Central government has provided Rs 200 crore to NTPC to restore the Lohari Nag Pala sites to its original but the work has been going at a slow pace. “I will be writing to Power Minister (Veerappa Moilly) on the issue of the restoration work,” Natarajan said.

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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