Arunachal to get hydel project to counter China

China’s bid to have big hydel power projects along the border in India’s northeast may soon witness a counter with the Indian ministry of environment and forests set to approve a 1,750-MW hydel power project in Arunachal Pradesh.

Updated on: Jan 30, 2012, 24:29:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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China’s bid to have big hydel power projects along the border in India’s northeast may soon witness a counter with the Indian ministry of environment and forests set to approve a 1,750-MW hydel power project in Arunachal Pradesh.

China has planned a hydel project in Zangmu, 140 km southeast of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, in a bid to tap the hydro potential of the Brahmaputra river.

The Arunachal Pradesh government has planned hydel projects on five major rivers, which finally meet the Brahmaputra, to generate over 50,000 MW of power. Many of these projects are stalled because of protests in Assam stemming from fears that the projects will dry up the river in downstream areas.

However, the environment ministry is likely to approve one of these projects, the Demwe Lower hydel project in Lohit district of the state, despite its being rejected by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife headed by minister in-charge Jayanthi Natarajan. The committee had rejected the project on the grounds that it will adversely impact wildlife in the Kamleng wildlife sanctuary and dolphins downstream.

Contrary to the committee’s view, 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 approvals that are 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 hydel projects in Arunachal were needed to counter China’s plans to develop mega hydel projects in Tibet. The minister agreed with his view.

Government sources expect the minister to issue an order regarding the Demwe project this month, paving the way for more hydel power 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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