HP’s hydel dream may hit green rock

The Himachal Pradesh government’s bid to get environment ministry on board to achieve its hydropower potential of over Rs 20,000 MW may hit green roadblock.

Updated on: Feb 16, 2011, 16:03:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Himachal Pradesh government’s bid to get environment ministry on board to achieve its hydropower potential of over Rs 20,000 MW may hit green roadblock.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has asked the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) on hydropower to consider a petition from people’s organizations across Himachal saying no approvals should be given until cumulative environment assessment of all river basins, where projects are envisaged, is done.

The state government is set make a presentation before the EAC seeking approval of the projects, where cumulative environment assessment has not been done, on the ground that the construction work will not start till the assessment is done. “What is the use of an assessment being done by an association of project proponents. They will not give a negative report,” said Mansi Asher of a local NG Him Dhara.

The fear arises from state government plans such as to allow only three km free flow of river Ravi, in Chamba district, in a 70 km long stretch. Similar fate is also being foreseen of rivers such as Sutlej and Beas, where number of hydro projects have been proposed. “Most rivers would be dead if all the projects are allowed,” said Rahul Saxena of Lok Vigyan Kendra in the state Kangra district.

To achieve this, the state government is set to seek waiver for ministry’s notional criteria of minimum distance of 1-2 kms between two dams on a river even though a state government committee, headed by Additional Chief Secretary Avay Shukla, had recommended minimum distance of 5 kms.

The EAC in its last meeting violated the ministry’s criteria by allowing 260 MW Khulair hydel project in the state, which people organization from Himachal say indicates flaws in environment approval process of the ministry.

“Minimum distance of free flowing river is necessary from many different perspectives…the MoEF can do is to stop clearances in over developed basins and in unavoidable cases, leave at least 5 km of free flowing river between two adjacent hydropower projects,” the people’s organizations said, in their petition.

Ministry sources said the concern expressed in the petition was genuine and the government was considering river basin studies, like the one done for Ganga River Basin. Even a planning commission had recommended that no new hydel projects should be approved till basin studies are done, an official 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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