Montek, Jairam disagree on fate of Renuka Dam

Prime minister Manmohan Singh will have to act as a referee to decide on the fate of Renuka Dam in Himachal Pradesh. The proposed dam is expected to be a vital source to fulfil Delhi's water needs in future.

Updated on: May 9, 2011, 01:10:21 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Prime minister Manmohan Singh will have to act as a referee to decide on the fate of Renuka Dam in Himachal Pradesh. The proposed dam is expected to be a vital source to fulfil Delhi's water needs in future.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had refused forest clearance to the dam in October 2010, on the ground that cutting 1.77 lakh trees for Delhi, where 40% water is lost in distribution, is not a good idea.

His recent small concession — allowing the dam if Delhi government agrees to reduce its water distribution losses substantially — to help the parched Capital get more water has not gone down well with the state government. "The two issues are not related," said a senior Delhi government official and added that improving distribution network is an ongoing exercise.

"Water from Renuka Dam is required to meet the demand in the next five years when Delhi's population will cross 200 million."

Ramesh has insisted that he could not authorise cutting down of 1.7 lakh trees in Himachal Pradesh till the Capital learns to value its water. "I can consider Renuka Dam only if the Delhi Jal Board substantially reduces its transmission losses," the minister told HT.

In October 2010, Ramesh had overruled the decision of the statutory body, Forest Advisory Committee, to allow the dam, which was meant to provide 270 million gallons of water every day — almost one-third of the city's present water demand.

Since then Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and her Himachal counterpart Prem Kumar Dhumal had urged Ramesh to review his decision.

When Ramesh refused to budge even when Planning Commission's deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia made a case on behalf of Delhi, the PMO decided to intervene. Ahluwalia wrote to Ramesh this week arguing that Renuka Dam was necessary for Delhi's future as existing water supply of 850 MDG will not be enough to meet the demand in the next few years. "Renuka is not a solution for Delhi," Ramesh wrote back to Ahluwalia while proposing his new condition.

With both Delhi and Himachal keen on the project, prime minister Manmohan Singh is expected to call a meeting in June of all stakeholders to find a solution.

Earlier, the PMO had to push Ramesh to clear Maheshwar Dam project in Madhya Pradesh and Posco Steel Plant in Orissa.

The Renuka Dam issue has stirred a debate over balance between ecology and development, as 1.77 lakh trees, enough to cover one-third of Delhi, will come under the axe to construct the dam.

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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