Govt may replace expert panel on Ganga with technocrats
The environment ministry is set to replace a panel of experts with a body of technocrats to decide the fate of hydropower projects on the Ganga, signalling the government’s inclination to move forward with the ventures despite resistance from within and caveats from the Supreme Court.
The environment ministry is set to replace a panel of experts with a body of technocrats to decide the fate of hydropower projects on the Ganga, signalling the government’s inclination to move forward with the ventures despite resistance from within and caveats from the Supreme Court.
The issue emerged as a major challenge for the BJP-led government that took office last year vowing to conserve the river that is revered by millions of Hindus and also provide electricity to all 1.2 billion Indians.
The previous committee headed by IIT Kanpur professor Vinod Tare recommended that only six of two dozen proposed projects on the Ganga’s tributaries, the Mandakini and Alakananda, be allowed and that too after reducing their capacity to ensure minimum flow of water to sustain aquatic life.
Sources said the governments’ plans would have been rendered economically unviable if it had followed the panel’s advice, with generation capability depleted by 30-40%, but it would have helped strike a balance between environment protection and development.
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The Supreme Court imposed a ban on construction of new hydro projects in Uttarakhand after the flash floods in 2013 killed hundreds, and it asked the environment ministry to examine the impact of such ventures on the local ecosystem.
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The Supreme Court imposed a ban on construction of new hydro projects in Uttarakhand after the flash floods in 2013 killed hundreds, and it asked the environment ministry to examine the impact of such ventures on the local ecosystem.
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Some arms of the government, such as the power ministry, opposed the expert panel’s recommendation, noting that forest clearance was granted to these projects before the devastation, officials revealed.
“Their (power ministry) view is that the ministry cannot revise its own clearance now,” a government representative said.
To find a way around, the environment ministry decided to get these projects reviewed afresh.
Sources said the ministry will set up a new committee likely to be headed by BP Das, a known proponent of hydro projects, with a joint secretary from the department as its convenor. The panel, when constituted, will be the third to review these 24 projects in less than two years.
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The new body is likely to have more technocrats than scientists, say sources, while activists fighting to save the Ganga allege this is being done to ensure clearance for the contentious projects.
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.
