Why is the IIT Consortium acting like a hydropower lobby?Dr Brij Gopal too endorsed WII recommendation that the 24 projects should be dropped. The peer review was sought by the Central

Contact :Himanshu Thakkar,Parineeta Dandekar,Amruta Pradhan,Ganesh GaudDams, Rivers and PeopleC/o 86-D, AD Block, Shalimar BaghDelhi - 100 088, India.Ph: + 91 11 2748 4654/[email protected]://sandrp.wordpress.com/,www.facebook.com/sandrp.in,http://sandrp.in

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Working for water resources development as if democracy, people and environment matter

Vol 12 | Issue 9 | October 2014Index

Why is the IIT Consortium acting like ahydropower lobby?

1. Why is the IIT Consortiumacting like a hydropowerlobby? 1

2. National GreenTribunal’s FourthFoundation Day: Whysuch a pro hydro bias? 7

3. Dibang ‘Insensitivity’Analysis 10

4. “Strengthen and notdilute EnvironmentLaws” 12

5. MoEF&CC discouragesAdditional Studiesduring EnvironmentalClearance 15

6. Massive Impacts ofRamganga Project 18

7. Narmada Estuaryneeds protection 20

8. Local Initiatives fordrought-proofingMaharashtra 25

9. Rupin HEP okayeddespite problematic EIA 29

10. Appeal to revoke theunjustified decision toincrease SSP Damheight 31

In a shocking development, Consor-tium of Indian Institute of Technol-ogy (IITC) has submitted a reportthat is a shot in the arm for the hy-dropower lobby in Ganga basin inUttarakhand. This IITC report isbeing used by the Union Ministry ofEnvironment, Forests and ClimateChange (MoEF&CC) to push ahead24 Hydropower Projects inUttarakhand which were recom-mended to be cancelled by two offi-cial expert reports, both commis-sioned on the orders of the SupremeCourt of India. It seems the authorsof the IITC report are jeopardizingthe formidable reputation of the IITsand over a dozen other instituteswhich are a part of IITC, possibly forsome short term gains.

Sounds ridiculous? Read on..

WII report The first expert reportmentioned above is the report of theWildlife Institute of India (WII), com-missioned by the MoEF & CC to as-sess the cumulative impact of some70 hydropower projects inAlaknanda-Bhagirathi basin inUttarakhand. WII submitted the re-port to MoEF&CC in April 2012 andamong other recommendations, saidthat 24 of these projects should be

dropped due to their irreversible &long term impact on aquatic and ter-restrial biodiversity. At the outset itshould be mentioned that the WII(“an internationally acclaimed”, “au-tonomous institute of MoEF&CC”,see: http://www.wii.gov.in/) recom-mendation of dropping 24 projectswas based on assessment of aquaticand terrestrial biodiversity impactsof the series of hydropower projectsin Bhagirathi-Alaknanda basins inUttarakhand. WII was commis-sioned to do this study by theMoEF&CC following an earlier SCorder based on CEC (Central Em-powered Committee) recommenda-tion.

MoEF&CC, did not want to take therecommended action, so it sat on therecommendation of the WII report.

EB report following SC directionsto Ministry to take stand on WII re-port On Aug 13, 2013, following theUttarakhand disaster of June 2013,the Supreme Court directions,among other things included, “MoEFis directed to examine, as noticed byWII in its report, as to whether theproposed 24 projects are causing sig-nificant impact on the biodiversityof Alaknanda and Bhagirath River

IIT Consortium Report on 24 Uttarakhand Projects is engineer-heavyreport which essentially sits in judgment on issues related to ecologyand makes serious errors. There are several procedural and merit basedshort comings in the report and it is unfortunate to see a consortiumof IITs, with formidable reputation, choosing to toe the convenientgovernment line, ignoring the impacts of such effort.

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Dams, Rivers & People October 2014

basins.” Again, MoEF&CC did not want to do any suchexamination on its own. Since MoEF&CC was settingup an expert body to examine the role of hydropowerprojects in the Uttarakhand disaster as per other direc-tions of the same SC order of Aug 13, 2013, the ministryincluded such examination also in the Terms of Refer-ence of the Expert Body (EB) under chairmanship of DrRavi Chopra.

The EB terms of reference were even wider than that ofWII study and the expertise available with EB was alsowider. With such expertise and terms of reference, theEB report (by 11 of the 13 members of EB) submitted toMoEF&CC in April 2014 came to the conclusion that 23of the 24 projects in WII list should be dropped and eventhe 24th project, namely the Kotli Bhel 1A should goahead only after significant modifications. Thus, essen-tially, EB too endorsed the WII recommendation.

It should be noted here that the WII recommendationswere peer reviewed (during the work of Expert Body in2013-14) by renowned biodiversity expert Dr Brij Gopal.Dr Brij Gopal too endorsed WII recommendation thatthe 24 projects should be dropped. The peer review wassought by the Central Water Commission representa-tive at the 2nd EB Meeting. Despite objections from someEB members, the Chairman agreed to such a review andproposed the name of Dr. Brij Gopal which was promptlyseconded by the Vice-Chairman, Dr. B.P. Das – a formerChief Engineer (Irr), Govt of Odisha and former ViceChairman of the MOEF&CC’s Expert Appraisal Com-mittee on River Valley Projects. In fact Dr. Brij Gopalsuggested that more projects needed to be dropped!

MoEF&CC still did not want to take action on the 24projects. So using the dissenting report by two govern-ment agencies which were largely toeing their officialposition in EB, theMoEF&CC suggested tothe Supreme Court of In-dia on May 7, 2014 that itwants to set up anothercommittee. Seeing no va-lidity in this, the HonorableSC rejected this suggestionand asked MoEF&CC totake a stand. SC has alsosince then put a stay onany further work on these24 projects.

Still not ready to take astand, MoEF&CC, usedthe reason that since IITCwas already working on Ganga River Basin ManagementPlan (GRBMP) for the ministry since 2010 went aheadand gave the task of reconciling the two EB reports toIITC. In effect this is tantamount to violating the SC

directions of not appointing another committee. How-ever, unlike the picture it tried to give to SC, this taskwas not part of GRBMP work, but given to IITC througha fresh TOR.

Perturbed at not receiving any serious required responsefrom MoEF&CC after repeated orders, the apex courtjudges of the Supreme Court rightly said the ministrywas behaving like Kumbhakarna and Rip Van Winkle.

On Oct 9, 2014, the MoEF&CC submitted an affidavitto the SC, relying entirely on a report from IITC. And loand behold, IITC had provided a report to theMoEF&CC, certifying that with some vaguely definedcriteria, all the 24 projects can go ahead and there is noneed to cancel any project! Serendipitously, this is ex-actly what the MoEF&CC & the hydropower lobbywanted!

It needs to be stated here that IITC had no mandate tosubmit such a report and the report is unprofessional,inadequate, unwarranted and inconsistent.

Let us see how.

Authors of the IITC report IITC report was authored byeight persons: Dr Vinod Tare (Civil Engineering Dept,IIT Kanpur), Dr I M Mishra (Department of ChemicalEngineering, IIT Roorkee,) Dr Purnendu Bose (CivilEngineering Department, IIT Kanpur), Dr Ligy Philip(Civil Engineering Dept, IIT Madras), Dr B S Murty(Civil Engineering Dept, IIT Madras), Dr R P Mathur(formerly Prof of Civil Engineering, University ofRoorkee), Dr M Jawed (Dept of Civil Engineering, IITGuwahati) & Dr Gautam Roy (Consultant GRBMP andformer student of Civil Engineering Department at IITKanpur). A perusal of the available information on pro-fessional background of these persons shows that none

of them have expertise onthe aquatic and terrestrialbiodiversity of theBhagirathi-Alaknanda ba-sin, to decide on the appro-priateness of the WII recom-mendations. Hence at theoutset it seems inappropri-ate for IITC to sit on judg-ment over recommendationof an expert body, on subjectmatter of which IITC has noexpertise.

The IITC team of 8 personslisted above, all with essen-tially engineering back-

ground have now also reviewed the EB report and madetheir own recommendations, again without having theexpertise that was available at EB command. It is thusinappropriate for IITC to comment on the recommenda-

Expert Body Report following Supreme Court’s or-ders also supported dropping 23 of the 24 projectsas recommended by WII. WII recommendationswere peer reviewed (during the work of Expert Bodyin 2013-14) by renowned biodiversity expert Dr. BrijGopal, who also endorsed the recommendations thatthe 24 projects should be dropped.

In fact Dr. Brij Gopal suggested that more projectsneeded to be dropped!

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on identifying functions ofthe river from geology, ecol-ogy, socio-economic and cul-tural perspectives, whichcan vary. The GRMBP ex-tended summary does notprovide clarity on e-flows forany of these aspects andhow to go about arriving atrequired environment flow.It should be mentioned herethat to arrive at environ-ment flows, there are about

200 methodologies available globally. The IITC reportattached with the MOEF&CC affidavit remains evenvaguer as it says maintenance of E-flow should lead “toriver stability and ecological balance in the downstreamareas.”

Clarity on environmental flows is crucial as the affida-vit from MOEF&CC itself agrees that MOEF&CC didnot address the issue of eflows adequately while grant-ing environmental clearances in Uttarakhand. One ofthe basic reasons behind this was lack of clarity on theissue and the same mistake is being repeated in the IITCReport.

Longitudinal Connectivity: In MOEF&CC affidavitof Oct 9, 2014, it is stated (para 6(b)/ 8(b)) that longitu-dinal connectivity is necessary to ensure “non-disrup-tive biota movement and silt transportation along the

river course that are essen-tial ingredients of a riverecology and its wholesome-ness. Otherwise, a frag-mented river stands to loseits basic character alongwith its native aquatic bio-diversity and ecological in-tegrity.”

One of the two places wherethe term longitudinal con-nectivity appears in theGRMBP Extended Sum-mary quoted earlier, says:“For dams and barrages, aprecondition is essential

that they cannot violate the longitudinal connectivity inRiver Ganga and her major tributaries. Besides theymust allow E Flows (Environmental Flows) all along theriver. A potential method for ensuring river connectiv-ity through dams/ barrages has been suggested.”

The only other place in the GRBMP Extended Summarywhere the term longitudinal connectivity appears is in-teresting as it connects all the three terms that IITChas used: “Thus, while longitudinal connectivity in river

tions of the EB which hadtwo biodiversity expertsfrom FRI (Forest ResearchInstitute) and WII, besidesexperts from Uttarakhandin various other disciplines.IITC is thus being unprofes-sional.

What does IITC reportsay The IITC report essen-tially says that ALL the 24projects can go ahead if theysatisfy three criteria: AviralDhara, Environmental flows and longitudinal connec-tivity. The first thing that strikes about these three termsis that they are all vaguely defined and can have flex-ible interpretations. They are also interconnected andnot necessarily independent of each other. Most impor-tantly, they do not take care of the issues based on whichthe two expert reports said that these 23 projects shouldbe dropped and even the 24th Project, namely the KotliBhel 1A may be dropped or modified. But first let usunderstand these three vaguely defined, flexible andinterconnected terms.

Aviral Dhara: According to the IITC report para 2.1(see also: “Ganga River Basin Management Plan Ex-tended Summary” of June 2014 available at: http://gangapedia.iitk.ac.in/sites/default/files/2014-06-12_GRBMP_Extended%20Summary.pdf): “Aviral Dharain this context means thatthe flow of water, sedimentsand other natural constitu-ents are continuous and ad-equate over the entirelength of the river through-out the year.” There is nodefinition of what is ad-equate here, nor it is clari-fied as to adequacy is fromwhat point of view. Here itshould be noted that Aviralliterally means uninter-rupted, but neither IITCnor MOEF&CC provide thisinterpretation. According toMOEF&CC affidavit of Oct9, 2014 (para 8(c)), Aviral means “to flow round the clock”or “continuous flow”.

Environment Flows: For Environmental flows, the“objective” of GRBMP is (see p 9 of the GRMBP ExtendedSummary) “Environmental Flows shall be maintainedin all rivers and tributaries of Ganga River System tofulfill their geological, ecological, socio economic andcultural functions.” The E-flows thus would than depend

Essentially, IIT C Report says that ALL the 24projects, rejected by two independent boards, cango ahead if they satisfy three vaguely defined andhighly malleable criteria: Aviral Dhara, Environ-mental flows and longitudinal connectivity. Thereare no clear definitions of Aviral Dhara and Longi-tudinal Connectivity and MoEFCC, as admitted byitself, is fumbling on eflows.

Three criteria of Aviral Dhara, EnvironmentalFlows and Longitudinal Connectivity are not suffi-cient to take a decision about these 24 projects asthey exclude large number of criteria that the twoexpert reports considered, including: terrestrialbiodiversity (completely absent in IITC report), cu-mulative impact (completely absent in IITC reportit only looks at project specific issues), projects’ lo-cation in hazardous zone, projects increasing thedisaster potential of the area, among many others

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network is an essential first step to maintain “AviralDhara”, having adequate river flows depends much onbasin’s overall water status.” This statement is thus alsomaking all three terms even more flexible, subjectiveand vague since they are dependent on “basin’s overallwater status”. This leaves the door open to later reducethe quantum of E-Flows.

It is thus clear that the IITC report annexed by theMOEF&CC with their Oct 9, 2014 affidavit says that ifthese three vaguely defined terms that are flexible andprone to subjective interpretations are satisfied, thenall the 24 projects can go ahead.

While these three, when clearly defined and properlyimplemented, are necessary conditions for any hydro-power project, to say that they are sufficient conditionis not only misleading, but also showing lack of under-standing of the environmental issues related to hydro-power projects. The MOEF&CC affidavit of Oct 9, 2014relies exclusively on this IITC report and wants to allowall 24 project based on these three vaguely defined, flex-ible criteria from IITC report.

However, these three criteria are not sufficient to take adecision about these 24 projects as they exclude largenumber of criteria that the two expert reports consid-ered, including: terrestrial biodiversity (completely ab-sent in IITC report), cumulative impact (completely ab-sent in IITC report it only looks at project specific is-sues), projects’ location in hazardous zone, projects in-creasing the disaster potential of the area, among manyothers.

The SC’s original direction was to examine if the 24projects would have significant impact on thebiodiversity. So the examination for these 24 projectsmust be done from the total biodiversity aspect and noton the basis of flow alone. The IITC itself has said in theGRBMP Interim Report of Sept 2013 that if biodiversityimpact is significant then the project should be disal-lowed. It is clear IITC has again been inconsistent.

IITC is inconsistent It should be added here that intable 4.2 of their “InterimGRBMP” of Sept 2013 (see:h t t p s : / / n m c g . n i c . i n /writereaddata/fileupload/25_GRBMPInterim_Rep.pdf),IITC provides larger set ofcriteria for deciding permis-sibility of dams and bar-rages in the Ganga Basin,which include criteria likethreat to terrestrialbiodiversity, rare, endan-gered and threatened (RET)species, geological hazards,

loss of historical, religious and cultural sites, among oth-ers. But these are no longer considered by the IITC intheir current report under discussion. The IITC is alsobeing inconsistent, besides being unprofessional andvague.

IITC report shows lack of understanding on basicenvironmental issues It is also disturbing to read theIITC report saying (section 2.1, last but one para), “How-ever, projects on streams/ rivers with negligible biotamay be allowed to proceed as per the environmental andother clearances already given to such projects providedthat adequate provision is made to ensure the mandatedE-flows. The adverse environmental impacts of suchprojects on the Ganga river system as a whole are ex-pected to be negligible. Such projects may, therefore, bekept out of Cumulative Environmental Impact Assess-ment (CEIA) for their approval.”

Firstly, this shows that IITC is out-rightly overrulingthe recommendation of the WII and EB on criteria ofterrestrial biodiversity, geological stability and so on.IITC is doing that too without providing any reasoningor basis. Significant number of the 24 projects have beenrecommended for rejection by WII and EB based on thesecriteria. Such baseless rejection of the recommendationby IITC not only shows their poor understanding of en-vironmental and geological issues, but also shows theirpro hydro bias.

Secondly, IITC makes the contention that the adverseenvironment impacts of such projects on Ganga riversystem is expected to be negligible, without providingany basis or scientific logic or reasoning.

Thirdly, suggesting that all such projects may be keptout of the CEIA seems to show poor understanding ofthe basics CEIA by the authors of IITC report. Largenumber of even so called low impact interventions canalso cumulatively have big impacts and to exclude themis against the very spirit of CEIA. It also then raisesdoubts about competence of IITC to prepare GRBMP,since GRBMP is supposed to also look at the cumulativeimpact assessment and carrying capacity of major in-

terventions in the GangaBasin. IITC authors do notseem to understand thateven aquatic biota gets af-fected by geological andother factors, that fish is notthe only aquatic biota andthat there is upstreamdownstream linkages inlifecycle of the aquatic biotaand that there are linkagesbetween aquatic and terres-trial biota life cycles, af-fected by hydrology.

IITC Report shockingly recommends keeping someprojects away from Cumulative Impact Assessment,overruling WII and EB Reports, calling them “lowimpact interventions”. However, massive impact ofa large number of such interventions is at the heartof Cumulative Impact Assessment. Such recommen-dations indicate the pro hydro bias of the IITC Re-port.

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The above stated issues raise serious doubts about theappropriateness of the IITC report and MOEF&CC’sattempts to push ahead with the 24 hydropower projectsin fragile and disaster prone Bhagirathi-Alaknanda ba-sin based on the inappropriate IITC report. Particularlywhen these projects were to be cancelled as per two ex-pert reports, both commissioned following two separateapex court orders.

Issue of cumulative impacts cannot be taken careof through project specific actions Here it shouldbe noted that the WII report has made its recommenda-tion about dropping 24 HEPs based on cumulative im-pact assessment of all theoperating, under construc-tion and planned projects inthe Bhagirathi-AlaknandaRiver basins. The same istrue with respect to EB rec-ommendation. The conclu-sions arrived at based on cu-mulative impact assess-ment by the WII and EBcannot and should not beaddressed by looking at project specific steps or actionsas MOEF&CC affidavit and IITC reports are doing.

Did Project Management Board allow IITC to dothis report? The IITC task of GRBMP is being over-seen by a Project Management Board (PMB) compris-ing of senior persons of all the seven IITs and some in-vited members. The IITC report dated July 21, 2014mentions, “The PMB in its fifth meeting held on Tues-day, June 24, 2014 at IIT Delhi agreed to examine thetwo reports in the broader framework developed forGRMBP.”

While this is what IITC claims in its July 21, 2014 re-port, this claim is not supported by the Minutes of therelevant meeting of PMB, as we see below. From thereading of the minutes, it seems that the IITC had nomandate or clearance to do this report.

In the minutes of the fifth meeting of PMB held on June24, 2014, para 7 seems to be the only relevant para inthis context, which reads as follows: “Project Coordina-tor sought the directions from PMB about the modusoperandi for follow-up actions after submission of thefinal draft of GRBMP – such as responding to queriesand comments on GRBMP and dealing with requestsfor other inputs on Ganga Basin received from govern-ment and other agencies. He mentioned that IITC isobliged to respond to such requests based on the workdone in preparing GRBMP, and the help of only activecontributors of IITC would be needed rather than theexisting mechanism of going through PICC and PMB.Professor Manna, Director, IIT Kanpur stated that IITKanpur is willing to take the responsibility on behalf of

IITC of such matters and Project Coordinator may takethe help and advice of concerned IIT Team members asand when needed. It was opined that each IIT may com-pile the list of new faculty members who may have joinedafter GRBMP project was started and communicate thesame to the Project Coordinator. Professor Khakhar sug-gested that Directors of the 7 IITs may discuss the mat-ter and communicate the decision to the Project Coordi-nator on modus operandi for submission of first versionof GRBMP, and responding to queries and comments onGRBMP and dealing with requests for other inputs onGanga Basin received from government and other agen-

cies.”

The first thing that strikesabout this para is that theProject Coordinator (DrVinod Tare) raised this inthe context of “follow-up ac-tions after submission of thefinal draft of GRBMP”,which is not the case withrespect to current issue,since the final draft of the

GRBMP is yet to be submitted. There is nothing in thispara to support the contention quoted above from thepreface of the IITC report that PMB “agreed to examinethe two reports in the broader framework developed forGRMBP.”

If this is the only para that is relevant in the context ofIITC report to MOEF&CC dated July 21, 2014 and ifthis para is not applicable at this stage since it is appli-cable only after submission of final draft of GRBMP, thenthe question arises, if the IITC had the permission fromPMB to submit such a report and if the MOEF&CCshould have submitted this report as authorized IITCreport? These questions can be answered by only theIITC, its PMB and MOEF&CC, but they are relevantsince it is this report purportedly from IITC that is soughtto be used by MOEF&CC to ensure that all the 24projects under discussion go ahead. In fact PMB and allconcerned from IITC should quickly clarify that this re-port cannot be called IITC report, but only from the spe-cific 8 persons listed above. The authors should be askedto remove the claim that this is IITC report.

IITR has poor track record and conflict of inter-est Here it is pertinent to note that of the four IITs in-volved in this report of IITC, IIT Roorkee (IITR) hasalready proven to have a poor and biased track recordand should not have been involved in any case. The IITRwas in fact commissioned in July 2010 by MOEF&CC todo cumulative impact assessment of the hydropowerprojects in Bhagirathi-Alaknanda basin. The report sub-mitted by IITR was so pathetic that it was not acceptedand it invited adverse comments from official agencies

Conclusions arrived at by EB and WII Reports arewithin the firm framework of Cumulative ImpactAssessment. The conclusions arrived through suchcumulative assessment cannot be countered byproject specific steps or actions as MOEF&CC affi-davit and IITC reports are doing.

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like the Expert AppraisalCommittee on River ValleyProjects, the Inter Ministe-rial Group on Ganga BasinProjects and also the Su-preme Court of India in Aug2013 order. (The report wasalso criticized by otherorganisations[1].)

Thus, IITR stands discred-ited on the precise issue ofcumulative impacts of hydropower projects inBhagirathi-Alaknanda basin. To include such an insti-tute for another IITC report now on the same issue notonly brings discredit to the whole effort, but raises theissue of conflict of interest.

While some issues are based on procedures and propri-ety, other issues relate to merit of IITC recommenda-tions as they do not hold the experience or expertise todeal with serious problems related to cumulative im-pacts, terrestrial biodiversity and RET species, defores-tation, and disaster potential of the region. Thus, on boththese counts (technical and merit based), the IITC Re-port is under cloud and does not hold enough ground tobase further informed decisions.

Conclusion In view of the above, it is clear that IITCreport is not adequate, reliable, or consistent to take adecision about 23 hydropower projects which have been

recommended to be droppedand 24th project, namelythe Kotli Bhel 1A projectwhich has been recom-mended to be dropped/modified by the WII and EB.IITC had neither the exper-tise nor the mandate to sub-mit such a report. TheMOEF&CC should not berelying on this report andrather coming out with its

own position as directed by the Supreme Court of Indiarepeatedly, keeping in mind the issues and merits of thetwo expert reports, both submitted following two sepa-rate apex court orders.

It is unfortunate that IITC has submitted a report thatis obviously music to both hydropower developers andgovernment. MoEF&CC has already offered more suchwork to IITC. We hope IITC will go beyond such shortterm interests and be more consistent, professional andwork towards rejuvenation of the Ganga and other riv-ers.

This current work is discrediting their future work ofGRBMP too.

- Himanshu Thakkar, SANDRP(Being an IIT Mumbai alumni myself,

I write this with a sense of sadness)

[1] For example, see: http://www.sandrp.in/hydropower/Pathetic_Cumulative_Impact_Assessment_of_Ganga_ Hydro_projects.pdf

IIT Roorkee involved in IIT Consortium had ini-tially prepared Cumulative Impact AssessmentReport of the same Upper Ganga Basin which wasof poor quality and invited adverse comments fromofficial agencies and Supreme Court. To includeIITR in this effort raises issues of credibility as wellas conflict of interest.

Vishnuprayag Project destroyed in June 2013 floods, Photo Matu Jansangathan

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The National Green Tribunal, NGT marked its 4th Foun-dation Day on 18 October 2014, with an impressive fan-fare. A full day function was organized at the Plenaryhall of the capital’s iconic Vigyan Bhawan. NGT in thisshort span has acquired a formidable reputation as aunique, vibrant, active institute with independent &unbiased mind and forthright, quick redressal of peti-tions that come to it.

The function in two separate sessions, one in the fore-noon and the other in the afternoon (a Seminar) wasattended by large number of government officials, judi-cial officers, advocates, law school students, NGT peti-tioners and office bearers and members of the NGT Barassociation.

Invited dignitaries included Mr Justice Ranjan Gogoi(Judge, Supreme Court), Prakash Javadekar (UnionMinister of State for Environment, Forests and ClimateChange) and Ashok Lavasa(Secretary, MoEF&CC) inthe forenoon session and MrJustice Sudhanshu JyotiMukhopadhaya (Judge, Su-preme Court) and PiyushGoyal (Union Minister ofstate for Power, Coal andnew and renewable energy).Mr Justice SwatanterKumar, the Chairperson of

the NGT, Mr Justice Dr. P. Jyothimani, Judicial Mem-ber, Principal Bench, NGT, Prof. R. Nagendra, and Dr.D.K. Agarwal, Expert Members at the NGT also spokeand graced the dais.

The function included, in addition to the addresses bythe invited dignitaries, the release of 2nd issue of NGTInternational Journal; the launch of new NGT Website(in the first session) and address by invitee experts (inthe second session).

In the first session Mr Javadekar informed the gather-ing about his political beginnings from a water pollu-tion struggle activist against factory pollution and MrLavasa categorically stated that the NGT is playing anextremely crucial role and that there is no move to di-lute its powers in any manner. It was in the second ses-sion that very controversially one Mr M.K. Pandit wasinvited to speak as an invited expert.

Even as an invited speaker,he was only eulogizing thegreat merits of high damsreceiving approving glancesfrom the power minister onan NGT seminar whosetopic was “Natural Disas-ters, Environment & Role ofNGT with special referenceto Uttarakhand, J&K,

National Green Tribunal’s Fourth Foundation Day:Why such a pro hydro bias?

NGT Foundation Function on Oct 18, 2014 Source: FB page of Information and Broadcasting Ministry

Blatant pro-hydro bias is unwarranted and out ofplace for an NGT Foundation Day Function AnNGT platform should not have been allowed to beused for such biased presentation. We hope the biasapparent in this aberration is just that, an aberra-tion and does not run deeper.

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Assam & HimachalPradesh”. Clearly some-thing was amiss, some-where?

Secondly, Mr. Pandit is nota neutral expert, but an in-terested party. As leader ofscores of pro hydro Environ-mental Impact Assessmentsthat he has led as part of theCISMHE[1] team (Centerfor Inter-disciplinary stud-ies of Mountain and HillEnvironment) has earnedthem millions as they alsocontinue to mint moremoney. Typical of IndianEIAs, no EIA done byCISMHE has ever raised any difficult questions for thedevelopers. It has also never concluded that any of theprojects is unviable. CISMHE EIAs are as shoddy, in-complete and inadequate as any other [2]. For exampleon Luhri HEP, the CISMHE EIA was so problematic thateven the Ministry of Environment, Forests and ClimateChange’s Expert Appraisal Committee on River ValleyProjects and the World Bank found it inadequate andunreliable.

Interestingly, CISMHE website says: “Ministry of Power,Government of India established CISMHE as an R&DCentre in power studies in environment in recognitionof its excellent past performance”. This means that thereis also conflict of interest here in CISMHE doing EIAs,since it has been set up as an R&D Centre by Ministryof Power, that is itself a promoter and developer of hy-dropower projects. No wonder, Mr. Pandit said what thePower Minister wanted to hear and Power Minister madeno efforts to hide his approval of what Mr Pandit wassaying. Very strangely, Mr. Piyush Goyal claimed thatTehri dam was an example of good project in theHimalayas that saved Uttarakhand in the floods of June2013. Mr. Goyal shouldknow that this claimhad absolutely no basisand even an ExpertBody appointed by theSupreme Court of In-dia has shown, afterlistening to THDC,CWC and others thatsuch a claim has no sci-entific foundation. Mr.Pandit did try to sup-port the unfoundedcontention of Mr.Goyal, but the minister

asked him to keep quite.

It became clearer, when apointed question asked byShri Manoj Misra ofYamuna Jiye Abhiyaanabout what would havebeen the Tehri dam scenarioif the Uttarakhand highrainfall event had occurredin the peak monsoonmonths of July, August orSeptember and not on 16June 2013 (as in fact hap-pened in Sept 2010, whenTehri created a havoc in thedownstream, damaging itsown Koteshwar project[3]),when the dam was almost

empty and only beginning to get filled, elicited an eva-sive response first by the Union Minister (we cannot havestructures planned for every 365 days in a year). Andlater when Pandit ji tried to answer, he was asked toshut without him being able to even respond to the othertwo questions relating to how does he reconcile to thefact of a high intensity earthquake visiting a regionwhere he had been advocating the dams; why was USA(as also some other countries), the mecca of large Damsbringing many of its dams down?

In any case, Mr. Maharaj Pandit was contradicting him-self, because he said something totally different in hisarticle in The Hindu soon after the Uttarakhand disas-ter of June 2013: “Most downstream damage in other-wise flood-free areas is caused by dams and barrages,which release large volumes of water to safeguard engi-neering structures. Dam operators often release morewater during rains than the carrying capacity of down-stream areas, causing floods… Hydropower policy mustconsider building fewer dams and prioritise those thathave the least environmental and social costs. Indepen-dent and serious monitoring of the catchment area treat-

ment plans proposed byForest Departmentswith funds from hydro-power companies needto be carried out andreported to the GreenTribunal.” In fact thenin June 2013, he was onTV channels almostevery night, talkingabout how Himalayashave the highest damdensity in the worldand that is such a biginvitation to disaster!

Mr. Pandit began with highlighting how recent andhow fragile the Himalayas were and that a 8+richter scale earthquake in central Himalayas wasround the corner that could flatten Dehradun. Verysoon, his nearly 25 minute long speech changedtrack as if on a cue to how great the hydropowerdam projects in the Himalayas were for the powersecurity of the country. The Union Power Ministerhad by then just joined the function to nod in fullagreement with all that the Mr. Pandit was narrat-ing. The audience on the other hand was left per-plexed as to what was happening.

Mountains of Muck deposited by Srinagar Project.Photo: Matu Jansangathan

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But he seems ready to change his stand to please theminister or the hydro project developers.

It seems as if Mr. Pandit had been invited to justify thebuilding of dams in the Himalayas in front of a largegathering of impressionable judicial officials and youngstudent minds. It is possible that it was also intended toinfluence the minds of NGT members (judicial and ex-perts) and other persons from judiciary in the face of anumber of proposed dams being challenged before thevarious NGT benches and courts.

If a proper seminar was indeed planned on such an im-portant matter, then there should have been severalspeakers on wide range of perspectives and topics andnot just one speaker with conflict of interest and a clearagenda? The only other technical speaker, Dr. R.Nagendran, an expert member with NGT southernbench spoke sensibly on how unscientific managementof sanitary projects in hilly regions lead to parallel“Faeco-microbial disaster” which is difficult to tackle.

Mr. Ritwick Dutta, secretary of NGT bar association saidthat the information about Mr. Pandit speaking fromNGT platform was not available in public domain and itis not clear how he was selected as a speaker. Such bla-

[1] http://www.cismhe.org/

[2] For example, see: http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/the-world-bank-drops-funding-usd-650-m-for-the-luhri-hydro-project-victory-for-the-sutlej-bachao-jan-sangharsh-samiti/, http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/pauk-heo-tato-i-hydro-power-projects-cismes-shoddy-eias-seven-big-hydro-on-third-order-tributary-of-brahmaputra/, http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/manipulating-environment-forest-clearances-for-dibang-project-deja-vu-lshp-history-repeated-will-it-be-tragedy-or-comedy/

[3] For details, see: http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/uttarakhand-floods-truth-about-thdc-and-central-water-commis-sions-claims-about-tehri/ and http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2013/08/07/is-thdc-preparing-to-repeat-the-disaster-tehri-created-in-sept-2010/

[4] http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/report-of-expert-committee-on-uttarakhand-flood-disaster-role-of-heps-welcome-rec-ommendations/

[5] http://www.greentribunal.gov.in/

[6] http://www.greentribunal.gov.in/Writereaddata/Downloads/circular7Oct14.pdf

[7] http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/nature-avenges-its-exploitation/article4834480.ece

tant pro hydro bias in an NGT foundation day meetingis certainly unwarranted and out of place for an NGTfunction. An NGT platform should not have been allowedto be used for such biased presentation. We hope thebias apparent in this aberration is just that, an aberra-tion and does not run deeper, considering that some hy-dropower professionals have been appointed on NGTbenches.

We hope that at least in future the NGT, a statutoryjudicial body, otherwise doing a great job for the protec-tion of environment, would be more careful in not let-ting its platform get used by the vested interests. Theformidable reputation that NGT has acquired with a lotof remarkable orders should not be allowed to be affectedby this one incident. NGT indeed needs to be strength-ened in every way and not weakened in any manner. Itwould also help if the NGT were to distance itself fromthis biased episode.

- Pushp Jain, EIA Research and Response Centre(http://www.ercindia.org/, Pushp Jain

[email protected]) &

SANDRP (based on interviews with those who werepresent at the NGT foundation day meeting)

Srinagar Town deep in sediments dumped by Srinagar Project. Photo: BBC

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Reaching exasperating lows of environment decisionmaking, the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) has rec-ommended Forest Clearance to the 3000 MW DibangProject on Dibang River in Arunachal Pradesh.

The usually reticentMoEFCC too had issued astrong-worded rejection tothis scheme in August 2014,stating that 10 meters re-duction is nothing in theface of what is being lost.The rejection letter stated:“Such a marginal reductionin requirement of the forestland (445 hectares reduc-tion, reducing forest re-quirement from 5056 hect-ares to 4577 hectares) for theproject may not be able toreduce the adverse impact ofproject on such abiodiversity-rich mature forest ecosystem to the extentwhich could make the project environmentally as wellas socio-economically viable in forest dependent tribalsociety of Arunachal Pradesh”.

This shows that the decision of FAC is devoid of merits,will invite huge opposition from Arunachal Pradesh,Downstream Assam, North East India, and even beyondand will not pass legal scrutiny. The decision seems tohave been taken under pressure from the political mas-ters. Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal has beendreaming of clearance to this project, as is clear fromhis road map published on completion of 100 days ofoffice for the new NDA government[2]. He has also beenpressurizing the MoEFCC to clear the project by hookor by crook. The FAC was reconstituted and the recon-stituted FAC has obliged the minister in its very firstmeeting. In the process, the entire FAC has violated itsmandate and should be held accountable for this.

Before the minutes of the September FAC meeting wereout on Oct 22, 2014 (there was an inordinate delay thistime, raising suspicion of negotiated minutes and againbreaking all norms of con-duct), there was discussionin media that Dibang wascleared, but even the hard-core skeptics believed thatthis recommendation musthave come after a 20 meteror 40 meter height reduc-tion, for obvious reasons.

But the FAC seems to haveoutdone itself. As stated

above, the recommendation has come at 10 mts heightdecrease, for which the FAC had rejected the project andMoEF had issued a rejection letter in the past. As wediscussed in detail in our article1 on Dibang project, the

twice-rejected project wasup for discussions again inSept 2014 only after consid-erable arm-twisting of theMEFCC by the CabinetCommittee of Investment,Ministry of Power, ProjectDeveloper NHPC andArunachal State Govern-ment. This time it was for asupposed SensitivityAnalysis (done by the de-veloper!) for studying thefeasibility of reducing theheight of the project upto 40meters from its originalheight of 288 meters.

This Sensitivity Analysis was not shared with anyone,not even the FAC members till the day of the FAC meet-ing, breaking all codes of conduct of transparency, par-ticipation and informed decision making in governance.SANDRP wrote about this to the Minister and Secre-tary of MoEFCC as well as the Member of the FAC, butreceived no response.

Looking at the minutes, it is clear that the FAC mem-bers have lapped up the logic presented by the devel-oper and the Ministry of Power which in a nutshell saysthat “10 meters reduction is sufficient as the ratio of for-est land required per MW is lowest at 10 meters reduc-tion.” This twisted logic reduces all decision making re-lated to forests, even biodiversity-rich forests support-ing endemic, unstudied species, local protests, down-stream impacts etc., to mere number crunching of for-est per MW. This criteria alone cannot be the basis fordecision for forest appraisal committee.

As per the sensitivity analysis by NHPC, the ratio for-est land required per MW for 40 meters reduction is 1.67MW/ hectare, which is same as no height reduction and

1.78 MW/ hectare in case of20 meter reduction. Interms of tariff, for 40 metersreduction, the power tariffwill be 6.24 Rs./unit whileit is 5.66 Rs/unit 10 metersreduction, 5.94 Rs./unit 20meters reduction and 5.64Rs. at zero reduction. Theinstalled capacity will re-duce by 120 MW (4%) MW

Dibang ‘Insensitivity’ AnalysisForest Advisory Committee recommends a project that will submerge nearly 12000 acres forest

Unbelievably, this recommendation has come at just10 meters height reduction of the dam from the pro-posed 288 meters. This same proposal was rejectedtwice by the FAC in the past despite this token 10meter height reduction. In April 2014, the FAC saidthat 10 mt reduction does not take care of any per-tinent impacts for which the proposal was rejectedin the first place in July 2013! A 10 m reductionwould still mean destruction of 3.24 lakh trees andsubmergence of 4577.84 hectares, nearly 12000acres, of rich bio-diverse forest.

Per MW forest land required and per Unit Tarifffrom a project are anything but objective criteriafor FAC. FAC is supposed to apply its mind to anumber of issues like the ones above. If FAC wasnot supposed to apply its mind to these aspects andits judgment, there was no need for an FAC, Powerministry and developer could have taken the deci-sion independently

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for 10 meters reduction, 600 MW (20%) for 20 mt reduc-tion and 780 MW (26%) for a 40 meter reduction.

How did NHPC reach this conclusion? What is the valueof the mature, old growth forest land considered byNHPC? Without knowingthis, how can this conclu-sion be acceptable to theFAC? It has to be remem-bered that Dibang is not anexclusive hydropowerproject, but a multipurposeproject with a flood mod-eration component andcosts have to be borne forthis. The proponent said:“Decrease in dam heightand consequent sacrifice ofpower generation beyond 10mt is not commensurate with saving forest land.”

While the proponent and Ministry of Power did theirbest for pushing the project, the FAC did not do its dutyof stating that the sensitivity analysis put forth by NHPCis a sham as it does not consider the worth of the forestbeing lost.

In this sabji-mandi haggling, when FAC had all the wa-tertight justifications for rejecting the project, it did notbat for even a 40 meter reduction, which could have savednearly 1355 hectares of forests and would have had amarginal impact on other factors. Its unclear why thishappened.

Only one of the FAC members tried to battle the casesaying that 10-40 meter reduction still does not addressthe upstream and downstream impacts, especially con-sidering the biodiversity rich area. The minutes do notdisclose the name of this member, but it seems the brutemajority (majority of FAC members are govt officials)took the official line, alleging “subjectivity” and said that“To reduce subjectivity, it is important to analyse theissue objectively on objective parameters”. Forgettingthat this is Forest Appraisal committee, not Power De-veloper Committee.

This is ironical. It was indeed the duty of the FAC toappraise the project “objectively” based on issues likedestruction of 3.24 lakh trees, invaluable forests, un-studied biodiversity, rich wildlife and several ScheduleI species, community dependence, traditional rights,downstream impacts, climate change impacts, optionsassessment, etc. But it did nothing of that and has in

fact recommended the project “subjectively”, bowing topressures outside their ambit.

Sham consideration of Downstream Impacts AboutImpact of the project on Dibru-Saikhowa National Park,

the User Agency said thatthe issue was considered byEAC and it has recom-mended clearance based onthe fact that there is lessthan 1 meter level fluctua-tion at DSNP.

This claim is untrue as thelevel fluctuation at DSNPcan go way higher than ameter, anywhere from 7-8feet every day in lean sea-son, according to the stud-ies considered by the EAC of

the MoEFCC itself.

To conclude, pricing mature, biodiversity-rich forestsin terms of per MW terms is an insult of those forests,the communities that depend on them and to the man-date of FAC. Downstream impacts of Dibang project arenot studied, the impacts on Dibru-Saikhowa are basedon compromised studies. If the FAC or project develop-ers think that the project is not economically viable withwise environmental safeguards, then it logically quali-fies for being dropped, not pushed.

There is no merit in newly appointed FAC decision andit is sad to see that there is no dissenting note from asingle member. The unnamed member who expresseddissent in the meeting has not written anything aboutthis in public domain. Decisions like Dibang lay furtherfoundations for poor, pro-developer, anti-people, anti-environment decisions taken due to pressure from pro-ponent and other ministries. Such decisions will not belegally tenable, nor acceptable to affected communities,nor good for sustainability and equity. In fact, by suchreversals, FAC decisions are losing their sanctity.

Isn’t it ironical that the new government changed thename of the MoEF to MoEFCC but is sanctioning mas-sive projects like Dibang which will have far reachingimpacts on Climate Change as well as adaption and miti-gation abilities of the affected communities? Withouteven considering these aspects or even mentioning them?

- Parineeta Dandekar,[email protected]

The FAC decision does not address any pertinentissues raised by the same FAC while rejecting theproject, it also does not address downstream im-pacts on Assam or assume any value for a rich for-est. There is no discussion why 20 meters or 40meters reduction is not seriously considered by FAC.Decision-making based on such biased, proponent-driven criteria is bound to be open to legal chal-lenge and public protests.

[1] For details see: https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/manipulating-environment-forest-clearances-for-dibang-project-deja-vu-lshp-history-repeated-will-it-be-tragedy-or-comedy/, https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/dibang-project-rejected-forest-clearance-for-the-second-time/

[2] http://www.piyushgoyal.in/uploadedfiles/views/ministry_english_booklet.pdf[3] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/india-untamed/2014/oct/22/indias-largest-dam-given-clearance-but-still-faces-flood-

of-opposition[4] https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/kalu-dam-in-western-ghats-fac-goes-back-on-its-word-without-any-justification/

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The review of Environmental Laws is currently beingundertaken by the High Level Committee (HLC) consti-tuted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Cli-mate Change. The task is huge and requires a muchmore detailed, comprehensive, real and effective con-sultative process than what is currently being done. TheCommittee is well within its right to say that such atask cannot be undertaken within such a limited andunrealistic time frame (2 months) and without the re-quired expert composition.

The committee must give suggestions only on how tostrengthen environmental law in India and not diluteenvironmental laws. Undermining environmental lawis disastrous for the people, environment and even foreconomic development. It is pertinent to point out someevents which have occurred in recent times which re-flects on how the decisions on environment have haddisastrous consequences both for the people and theeconomy.

Contrary to what is gen-erally projected by theIndustry Associationsand a section of thepress, environmentallaws are not the cause ofslow economic growth.Rather speedy andhasty approvals havebeen the cause of bothenvironmental, socialand economic loss anddamage. It is imperativeto focus on some factswhich would be rel-evant.

The Ministry of Environment and Forest and its vari-ous expert committees never reject a project totally. Evenif the approval is declined in one meeting it is presentedin a subsequent meeting with minor modification. Onecan cite the recent case of Dibang Hydro Electric projectin Arunachal Pradesh which was recommended for for-est clearance despite being rejected twice by the ForestAdvisory Committee.

On an average 333 acres of Forest Land is diverted eachday by the Ministry of Environment and Forest underthe Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. This does not in-clude forest land below 40 hectares and those illegally

diverted.1 India already has a very high rate of forestloss.

An analysis of the approvals granted by the RegionalOffice of the MoEF based on recommendation of StateAdvisory group, the rate of approval is 78 Percent.

The Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) constituted un-der the EIA Notification 2006 undertakes the task ofappraisal at remarkable speed and hasty manner. It isworth quoting from the Judgments of Courts and Tribu-nals on the manner in which appraisal is done by theExpert Committees.

A. Samata Versus Union of India [National GreenTribunal , Appeal No 9 of 2011,] [Thermal Power Plantin Andhra Pradesh]

‘For a huge project as the one in the instant case, a ther-mal power plant with an estimated cost of Rs. 11,838crore, covering a total area of 1675 acres of land, the

consideration for ap-proval has been done insuch a cursory and arbi-trary manner even with-out taking note of theimplication and impor-tance of environmentalissues. On the same daythe EAC took for ap-praisal not only the ther-mal power plant in ques-tion, but also otherprojects which would beindicative of the hasteand speedy exercise ofits function of appraisalof the project.

B. Utkarsh Mandal Versus Union of India [1]

“As regards the functioning of the EAC, from the re-sponse of the MoEF to the RTI application referred tohereinbefore, it appears that the EAC granted as manyas 410 mining approvals in the first six months of 2009.This is indeed a very large number of approvals in afairly short time. We were informed that the EAC usu-ally takes up the applications seeking environmentalclearance in bulk and several projects are given clear-ance in one day. This comes across as an unsatisfactorystate of affairs. The unseemly rush to grant environ-mental clearances for several mining projects in a single

“Strengthen and not dilute Environment Laws”Submission to the High Level Committee to Review Environment Laws

India’s Environmental laws are a result of people’sstruggle, international conventions, commitments andjudicial pronouncements and are aimed at ensuring sus-tainable development. While a review is being pushed,there is no clarity of either the objectives or the purpose ofthis review.

In any case, the review will have to follow the Principleon Non-Regression and link Environmental Laws to ba-sic Human Rights.

1 See report of EIA Response Centre at: http://www.ercindia.org/index.php/erc-in-news/national-news/816-india-losing-135-hectares-forest-daily-rti and http://www.ercindia.org/index.php/714

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day should not be at the cost of environment itself. Thespirit of the EAC has to be respected. We do not see howmore than five applications for EIA clearance can betaken up for consideration at a single meeting of theEAC. This is another matter which deserves serious con-sideration at the hands of MoEF.”

C. Gauraxa Hitraxa Pauchav Trust Vs Union ofIndia [Appeal No 47 of 2012 of NGT] [Pipava port,Gujarat]

“The relevant observations in the EAC meeting revealthat the presentation made by the Project Proponentwas accepted as “gospel truth””

D. Sreeranganathan K.P and ors Vs Union of In-dia: [Appeal No 172 -174 of 2013] [Aranmula Airport,Kerala]

“The Tribunal is able to notice a thorough failure on thepart of the EAC in performing its duty of proper consid-eration and evaluation of the project by making a de-tailed scrutiny before approving the same……The EAC isconstituted consisting of a Chairman and number ofmembers who are experts from different fields only withthe sole objective of national interest in order to ensureestablishment of new projects or expansion of alreadyexisting activity without affecting the ecological andenvironmental conditions. Thus, a duty is cast upon theEAC or SEAC as the case may be to apply the cardinaland Principle of Sustainable Development and Principleof Precaution while screening, scoping and appraisal ofthe projects or activities. While so, it is evident in theinstant case that the EAC has miserably failed in theperformance of its duty not only as mandated by theEIA Notification, 2006, but has also disappointed thelegal expectations from the same.

The above list is only illustrative and there are manyother judgments reflecting the situation with respect tohaste with which approvals are granted.

While undertaking any review the Committee must keepinto account the following facts, issues and ground re-alities.

India’s Environmental laws are a result of people’sstruggle, international conventions, commitments andjudicial pronouncements and are aimed at ensuring sus-tainable development. Most provisions of the India’senvironmental laws have been an outcome of Interna-tional Conventions pursuant to Article 253 of the Con-stitution eg, the Public Hearings and Environment Im-pact Assessment became part of India’s legal frameworkpursuant to the Rio Declaration of 1992 and the NationalGreen Tribunal was set up pursuant to India’s commit-ment to Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration.

‘Principle on Non-Regression’ has to be appliedwhile undertaking review The principle of non-re-

gression is understood as the requirement that normswhich have already been adopted by states may not berevised in ways which would imply going backwards onthe previous standard of protection [2] This principlehas been traditionally recognized in the area of humanrights – that is, once a human right is recognized it can-not be restrained, destroyed or repealed. This theme isechoed in almost all the major international instrumentson human rights, including the Universal Declarationof Human Rights. [3] Environmental rights are closelyrelated to human rights as well, including cultural andsocial rights, and can be interpreted to apply in the con-text of environmental protection as well. In addition,the principle is increasingly being invoked in the con-text of environmental protection. The European Unionhas adopted this view through a resolution: [4]

97. Calls for the recognition of the principle of non-re-gression in the context of environmental protection aswell as fundamental rights.

The Resolution of the UN General Assembly as theoutcome document of the Rio+20 United Nations Con-ference on Sustainable Development reflects the accep-tance of this principle as well:[5]

20. We acknowledge that since 1992 there have beenareas of insufficient progress and setbacks in the inte-gration of the three dimensions of sustainable develop-ment, aggravated by multiple financial, economic, foodand energy crises, which have threatened the ability ofall countries, in particular developing countries, toachieve sustainable development. In this regard, it iscritical that we do not backtrack from our commitmentto the outcome of the United Nations Conference onEnvironment and Development. We also recognize thatone of the current major challenges for all countries,particularly for developing countries, is the impact fromthe multiple crises affecting the world today.

Therefore, the principle of non-regression applies as ahuman and fundamental right, as well as under the prin-ciples of environmental law – like “sustainable develop-ment” and precautionary principle”.

The concept of Sustainable Development has to be com-prehensively understood and cannot be equated onlywith economic growth. The Rio Declaration of 1992 hasto be comprehensively understood and read not in isola-tion but as a whole. Public hearings (Principle 10), EIA(Principle 17) Precautionary Principle (Principle 15),Compensation and liability regime (Principle 13) are thecore of Sustainable Development and have been incor-porated as part of national law. The aim should be tofurther include these in various laws in a comprehen-sive manner. Rule of law, the right to participate effec-tively in matters which concerns one’s life.

Expert Committees, Advisory Committees, Appellate

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Forums constituted of Bureaucrats do not inspire confi-dence. This Committee must recommend that any com-mittee or appellate forums should not have any bureau-crats. The working of the National Environment Appel-late Authority (NEAA) is a classic example of failure dueto the fact that retired IAS and IFS officials were madevice chairman and member.

The Delhi High Court in Vimal Bhai versus Unionof India [CM No. 15895/2005 in W.P. (C) 17682/2005has held:

“The list produced by the petitioners of appeals beforethe NEAA shows that most of the appeals disposed ofthus far have in fact been dismissed, comprised as it isof retired bureaucrats, minus the Chairperson and ViceChairperson. The NEAA is, therefore, at present nei-ther an effective nor an independent mechanism for re-dressing the grievances of the public in relation to theenvironment clearances granted both either the Stateor the Central Government.”

Conclusion There is clearly a need to review environ-mental laws. Yet neither the objective nor the purposeof the present exercise is clear. The Environment (Pro-

[1] Delhi High Court, 2009 http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/188721650 [Mining in Goa]

[2] The Future of Environmental Law – Emerging Issues and Opportunities, Issue Brief 3, United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (2012). Available at http://www.unep.org/delc/Portals/24151/IssueBriefTheme3.pdf

[3] Michel Prieur, “Non-regression in environmental law”, S.A.P.I.EN.S [Online], 5.2 (2012). Available at: http://sapiens.revues.org/1405

[4] Resolution on developing a common EU position ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development(Rio+20). Document no. P7_TA-PROV(2011)0430. Available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=MOTION&reference=B7-2011-0522&format=XML&language=EN

[5] Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 27 July, 2012. A/RES/66/288. Available at: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/66/288&Lang=E

tection) Act, 1986 has numerous notifications issuedunder it. It ranges from EIA Notification to rules regu-lating the use of Plastics and microorganisms. Will thepresent review cover all these? These are issues whichneed clarity. In addition, the Committee has to genu-inely interact with all concerned persons across the coun-try. The present process cannot be called consultative atall.

India’s environment has already been impacted nega-tively due to hasty decisions as evident from numerousdecisions of the Courts, the least this HLC can do is notto prepare a hasty report based on limited and one-sidedinformation and limited public interaction.

- Ritwick Dutta ([email protected])Environmental Lawyer,

Managing Trustee,Legal Imitative for Forest and

Environment, New Delhi

[SANDRP’s Report on HLC: https://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/review-of-environment-laws-is-neces-sary-but-the-tsr-subramanian-hlc-lacks-credibility/]

Shirapur Lift Irrigation Scheme without Environmental Clearance or Wildlife Clearance

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The Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Cli-mate Change (MoEFCC, formerly MoEF) has been issu-ing a slew of orders, circulars and Office Memorandums(OM)[1] lately for “streamlining” Environmental andForest Clearance process. At the same time, the mis-leading, non-compliance, hiding of information, willfullyproviding wrong information is rampant from projectproponent side, with MoEF taking no firm action. Wehave illustrated this with very few examples below.

Take an example of OM issued on the 7th October, 2014titled “Seeking additional studies by EACs/ SEACsduring appraisal of project beyond the Terms ofReference (ToRs) prescribed under EIA[2] Notifi-cation 2006”(No. 22-A3/ 2O14-IA-III).[3]

In a nutshell, this OM states that “It has been broughtto its notice” that Expert Appraisal Committees (EACfor short. EAC is at the center, considering Environmen-tal Clearances for biggerprojects) and State ExpertAppraisal Committees(SEAC for short. SEAC is atState level, consideringsmaller projects for Envi-ronmental clearance) havebeen asking for “additionalstudies which do not form apart of TOR” and this “de-lays the whole process andis against the spirit of EIANotification (2006)” It further says that EAC/ SEACshould address all issues at the primary scoping clear-ance stage [4]itself, based on Form I submitted by theproponent and meeting of proponent with EAC andshould ensure that “no fresh issues are raised later” andthat additional information/ additional studies shouldbe asked only if it is proved to be “inevitable”.

This OM clearly seems to be brought out due to pres-sure from project-related ministries state and industrylobby. We need to understand that EACs and SEACswere asking for Additional Studies in very rare cases.EACs like the one on River valley and Hydropowerprojects have a clearance record of 100% and rarely asksfor additional studies. So what was the need for thisspecific OM? This OM does not serve any purpose otherthan discouraging the committees from asking additionalinformation or studies post TOR stage and is a regres-sive step.

In reality, the very need for asking such additional stud-ies or information is due to severely compromised infor-

mation provided by the proponents themselves at theScoping Clearance stage.

Looking at the EC process it seems hiding information,providing false information, misleading the EAC andeven committing blatant violations has become the normrather than an exception. In very rare cases, when thisis exposed before EAC, they have asked for additionalstudies (instead of taking any strong action, for examplerejecting the application or postponing decision till thestudies are done, as per the Law and prudent decisionmaking norms). The OM is effectively stating that EACsshould process applications based on any shoddy infor-mation they receive and should close their eyes evenwhen critical issues surface later in the process. This islike accelerating a flawed process, in a race to the bot-tom.

Rather than passing such OMs, the Ministry needs toensure that all the steps ofEC process are compliedwith. That’s not the case to-day and that’s a more press-ing problem than the addi-tional studies. It is this non-compliance that is damag-ing the “Spirit of EIA Noti-fication 2006” about whichthe MoEF seems to be leastconcerned. There is no needfor any additional OMs to

fix these issues, only real concern for spirit of EIA Noti-fication and other related laws.

Below we give a few examples which indicate the gap-ing holes in the current system is and how “not askingfor fresh information or additional studies” will resultin severely flawed environmental decision making.

Basic Project Information (Form I & PFR) has been in-correct, false or incomplete on many occasions:

The OM states that the EACs/ SEACs should base theirTORs on basic project information (in the form of FormI & Pre-feasibility Reports – PFR) submitted by the pro-ponent and a brief meeting with the proponent. (Notehere that there is no role for any external agency andthe Ministry is fully relying of the proponent for projectinformation submitted at this stage.) Form I asks lim-ited questions and a number of times, the answers pro-vided by the proponent are incorrect, incomplete or mis-leading. Seems to be a sure way to make wrong deci-sions, doesnt it? Some examples:

MoEF&CC discourages Additional Studies duringEnvironmental Clearance

A Highly regressive and damaging step

A vast majority of orders passed lately by MoEFCCare pro-industry and anti-environment. Drop bydrop, such orders and circulars are making it im-possible to rely on the original Environment Actsand Notifications, as the orders have interpretedActs in convenient ways.

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Sonthi Lift Irrigation Scheme in Karnataka, theForm I took the MoEF for a royal ride. The project wasalready significantly finished, in violation of the EIAnotification and EPA (1986) when the officials ap-proached MoEF for “Scoping” Clearance! And even af-ter pointing out all the blatant violations, the MoEF ac-cepted the project, with no action taken again the viola-tors (Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited). We hadpointed this out at many stages.

In case of 1750 MW Lower Demwe Project inArunachal, which is part of a string of projects in LohitBasin with huge cumulative impacts and downstreamimpacts on Assam, the Form I says “No cumulative im-pacts”.

In case of Shirapur Lift Irrigation Scheme inMaharashtra, the Form I was a joke as the half-fin-ished project with canals has been sitting idle for manyyears in Solapur, blatantly violating EPA, 1986, affect-ing last habitats of the critically endangered Great In-dia Bustard.

We and others have pointed this out to the EAC andMoEFCC over the years, but no action was taken, thusencouraging the developers. We have not heard of asingle instance when the MoEFCC has rejected the pro-posal based on problems with Form I/ PFR and as perthe Clause 8 (vi) of EIA Notification 2006, which is reit-erated in the present OM. And now the Ministry wantsEAC to take action only based on such information, andwithout any further studies!

No action is taken when EIA is prepared violatinggranted Terms of Reference (TOR) The Ministry issaying that asking for additional information is againstthe spirit of EIA Notification 2006. The same Ministrydoes not bat an eyelid when projects are recommendedEC (Environment Clearance) by EACs even when theyviolate the TORs based on which the project receivedfirst stage clearance! Is that not against the spirit of EIANotification?

Here too, SANDRP has pointed this out a large numberof times, but this has not been acknowledged in mostcases. Some examples include EIA EMP of Kalai IIProject in Arunachal Pradesh, 3000 MW Dibang Projectin Arunachal Pradesh, 660 MW Kiru and 560 MW KwarHEPs in Jammu and Kashmir, Sach Khas Project inHimachal Pradesh etc.,.

Again this is just an indicative list, showing the extentof real problems.

No action was taken when EIA was plagiarizedThere have been multiple occasions when EIA is exceed-ingly shoddy and even plagiarized! In these cases too,although it has been brought to the notice of EAC/ MoEF,no action has been taken. For example: In case ofMohanpura Irrigation Project in Madhya Pradesh,

plagiarizing in WAPCOS EIA was pointed out to the EACby SANDRP and individual researchers . In case ofSonthi lift Irrigation scheme, the entire EIA was sopoorly plagiarized by WAPCOS that even the name ofthe original project (Kundalia major multipurposeproject from Madhya Pradesh) was all over the EIA fora Karnataka Project! SANDRP pointed out this too, butthere was no response on this point.

No action was taken when EIA provided mislead-ing information In several case like 3000 MW Dibangproject, EIA Agency and Project Proponent have pro-vided misleading information. No action was taken whenthis was pointed out. Some examples in this regard in-clude: Bansujara Project, Chinki Multipurpose projectboth in Madhya Pradesh, EIA in both cases done byWAPCOS.

SANDRP and other organizations routinely look at theEC process, and we are overwhelmed at the level of non-compliance happening at the proponent end as well asEAC and MoEF level.The affected communities see howtheir submissions are either misrepresented in the EIAs,or just not considered by the EAC even when objectionsare loud and clear in Public hearing reports (like in caseof Dibang EIA).

MoEFCC further denigrates the Public Consulta-tion Process By discouraging additional studies, theMoEFCC is suggesting that even public consultationsare immaterial. No more studies, after TOR please! Thisis an insult of the public consultation process whichshould form the heart of appraisal and assessment pro-cess. For the same reason, in many countries public hear-ing is conducted before granting Terms of Reference. Inthe absence of any such provision, simply stating thatadditional studies should not be recommended after TORstage is a seriously regressive step.

Project application documents not available in publicdomain

For basic transparency in Environment appraisal pro-cess it is necessary that all the documents (Form 1 andPFR at TOR stage & EIA-EMP and Public consultationdocuments at EC stage) that accompany the applicationfor environmental clearance are put out in public do-main well in advance ( at least ten days) before theprojects are discussed by EAC, as ordered by CentralInformation Commission that in 2012. But this is nothappening. In fact the projects that are on the EACagenda are many times not even listed on the relevantenvironment clearance website (http://environmentclearance.nic.in/).

The situation has particularly worsened since June 2014,after the new BJP-led government came to power at thecentre. It is on areas like these that we need MoEFCCto be pro-active. (Pass some OMs here!)

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In the end The system of Environmental Appraisal andClearance today lacks accountability, transparency,democratic norms and compliance. Some of the majorreasons for asking for additional studies is when theForm I, PFR and EIA do not adequately address issues.

In order to bring in speed and accountability in the ap-praisal process, there is a need to:

• Blacklist and debar EIA consultants which provideplagiarized, misleading or false data in EIA reports

• Reject applications based on false or misleading FormI – PFR

• Reject applications which do not conform with TORsgranted

• Consider submissions received from civil society andaffected groups at the time of TORs and EC processcarefully and consider these as inputs and help for aholistic appraisal, not as adversaries. Inviteorganisations/ individuals in the EAC meetings whenthose specific projects are discussed.

• MoEFCC needs to ask EAC to show application ofmind while appraising projects, submissions, publichearing processes and considering proponent’s re-sponse. This serious consideration by the part of EACshould be reflected unambiguously in the minutes ofthe EAC meetings.

• MoEFCC needs to appoint as members and chair-persons of EAC only such persons with a track record

indicating knowledge, experience and independenceon environment issues. A recent NGT order askedMoEFCC to do exactly, this, but MoEFCC has yet toimplement this order.

• MoEFCC needs to ensure that all the relevant docu-ments for projects on EAC agenda are put in publicdomain at least ten days in advance of the EAC meet-ing, as directed by the Central Information Commis-sion. In absence of such documents in public domain,the EAC should not be considering the projects.(MoEFCC should in fact come out with a notificationon this!)

• Reject projects which have violated EPA (1986) andEIA Notification (2006). Here too, the MoEFCC regu-larizes blatant violations by passing OMs.

• Most of the above is enshrined in the EIA Notifica-tion (2006) and the Environment Protection Act(2006) and there is no need for passing any OM forthis, but such steps will automatically make the ECprocess not only efficient and swift, but also respon-sive, pro-environment and pro-people.

And this should be the main concern of Ministry of En-vironment, Forests and Climate Change.

- Parineeta Dandekar([email protected])

with inputs from Himanshu Thakkar([email protected])

[1] http://www.moef.nic.in/circulars

[2] EIA: Environmental Impact Assessment

[3] http://moef.gov.in/sites/default/files/OM_EAC_SEAC_07_10_2014.pdf

[4] Scoping clearance stage is first stage of Environmental Appraisal Process when the EAC grants Terms of Reference (TOR) tothe project based on which Environment Impact Assessment is carried out later

Sonthi Lift Irrigation Scheme in Karnataka Ready before TOR Clearance

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The Ramganga multipurpose project1, from the point ofview of the government, is an eminently successfulproject. From the date of its commissioning in 1974, gov-ernment reports declare that it has been fulfilling itsstated objectives2. These were to bring an area of 5.90lakh hectares under irrigation, control floods down-stream, supply 5.5 cumecs to Delhi and generate 451million units of power annually.

A data-based examination of each objective and whetherit has actually been met by the project is outside thescope of this article, which presents the stories of peoplewhose experience of the dam differs substantially fromthe ‘official’ version. These histories were gathered dur-ing several rounds of surveys and interviews with peopleliving along the Ramganga at Kalagarh and Harewali.

Kalagarh is where the main storage dam of theRamganga river valley project is located. The people ofKalagarh have only one reaction when it comes to the

river- fear. Deveshwari Devi of Kalagarh described thesituation of the people of her town as ‘The dam hasbrought us no benefits, only losses. Dia tale andhera. Itis always darkest beneath the flame.’

The residents of Kalagarh and the neighbouring villagesearlier approached the river for fishing, cutting grass,collecting wood, and farming. Since 2010, a fear of theriver has brought all activities to a halt, says NababAhmed who has not fished in the river for the last fouryears.

23 kilometers downstream of Kalagarh is Harewali bar-rage. The people near this barrage find their lives en-tirely governed by nebulous ‘authorities’ with total con-trol over their lives and livelihoods.

Just a generation ago the farmers of Bhagota harvestedthree crops a year. These crops were a diverse array ofgrains such as wheat, rice and corn, along with sugar-cane and vegetables. The Ramganga would bring in siltwith its annual floods and replenish the fertility of thesoil. The same floods would also recharge the soil’s mois-ture. In addition to the crops, people harvested the fishthat made their way up and down the Ramganga as pertheir breeding cycle. This quiet and self-sufficient lifewas shared by many other villages including Parmawalaand Shahajahanpur.

In the middle of the 1970s, life changed drastically. Thevillages were divided into ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’of the barrage. Like the world ‘through the looking-glass’,they now lead lives drastically opposed to each other.

The Harewali Barrage impounds the water let down byKalagarh dam and diverts it to the Khoh river, fromwhere it is taken to the Upper Ganga canal system. Con-fusing, isn’t it? This confusion pales in front of the up-side-down river cycle that the people of Bhagota, up-stream of the barrage, are subject to. From 15 Novem-ber to 15 June, the barrage gates are closed and thepeople’s farmlands are flooded. This effectively does awaywith the Rabi and summer crop seasons. What is left ispaddy cultivation during the Kharif season, and eventhat is at the mercy of the Dam gods. Often, the damauthorities do not open the dam gates till long after thescheduled 15 June date. This means that the farmerslose out on the sowing period. Similarly, often the gatesare closed before the middle of November, which meansthat they lose the harvest.

Ramganga Project: A performance Review Massive impacts of Ramganga Project

1 UP Irrigation department. Ramganga- Asia’s highest earth and rock fill dam. http://irrigation.up.nic.in/ptr/ramganga.htm

2 Agricultural Finance Corporation ltd. 2012. Report on environmental evaluation study of Ramganga major irrigation project. Volume 1.Central Water Commission, Environmental impact assessment directorate. February 2012

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Fishing is no longer as per the migratory cycle of thefish, but as per dam releases. When Kalagarh opens itsgates, the fish from the reservoir are washed down-stream, only to be trapped at Harewali. Thus, the fishupstream of Kalagarh are isolated, their breedingrhythms broken. Just a generation after the building ofthe dams, the fishers are already seeing the impact ofthis isolation of the fish breeding populations. Fish sizeshave decreased, and the relative proportions of differ-ent species are changing.

The agricultural cycle of the downstream villages ofShahajahanpur and Parmawala is forced to move on adiametrically different level. For them, the months be-tween June and November are a time of intense floods.They are well able to live full flows during the‘chaumasa’, the monsoon. What causes them distress arethe unannounced releases prior to and after thechaumasa. They confirmed the Bhagota residents’ claimsthat releases outside the scheduled dates cause greatdamage to crops.

‘Paalej’ farming is the cultivation of cucurbits- melons,gourds and cucumbers- along the silty banks of the riverafter it recedes post-monsoon. This crop is sown imme-diately after the monsoon as increasing areas of thebanks emerge from the river, and harvested in the sum-mer before the floods come. Now, often unexpected re-leases come in the late monsoon, or early in the season.Razia, a paalej farmer, sowed the fields she rents from alanded farmer three times in 2013- and lost the cropanyway. Further, the dam has altered the sediment char-acteristics so that instead of bringing in fine silt the riverbrings in coarse sand. This decreases yield even further.Razia is the last of the Paalej farmers in her village.People no longer practise what they term a gamble.

Those farmers lucky enough to own land have gone infor growing sugarcane, withstands most flooding. It toocan be flattened by the sand brought in during ‘emer-gency’ releases. Om Prakash told me that such a releasethis year took away both his fields in Parmawala, andalso his 20-year old son. Three days after RakshaBandhan, the young man had gone to the fields to stripthe cane leaves for fodder. There was a sudden releaseof water, and the young man was never seen again. Asign posted on the barrage relieves the dam authoritiesof any culpability in such incidents.

Where do our Technocrats stand on this issue? At a re-cent meeting in Kanpur, several authorities includingDr. Tare, IIT consortium and Mr. Singh, retired officialof UP irrigation expressed their opinion it is the peoplethat need to adapt to the situation. Progress is needed,they said.

Dubious progress in the canal command area, sure dev-astation along the river. Progress.

- Chicu Lokgariwar, ([email protected])

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Pungent fishy smell is the first thing that grabs yourattention in Bhadbhut village in Bharuch District ofGujarat, which lies on the estuary of the mightyNarmada River, as it meets the Arabian Sea. Every al-ternate shop in every small lane sells fresh fish and by11 in the morning, first lot of fresh fish is ice packed inthermocol boxes, all set for far off places like Kolkataand Delhi. Before I was told, I saw for myself that fish-ing in the Narmada Estuary is the backbone of coastalBharuch district.

Just 5.15 kilometers from here is the planned BhabhutBarrage on the Narmada River. What will happen toBharuch if barrage is constructed? This is the reasonwhy I am here. To understand the implications of thisbarrage on lives of thousands of fisherfolk from this es-tuary and on the famed Hilsa fish, that mysterious sil-ver river migrant, on which the fishing economy dependsnearly exclusively.

Hilsa is a marine fish that arrives in the brackish waterof estuary for spawning normally inhabiting the lowerregion of the estuaries and the foreshore areas of thesea. For India the peak upstream migration of hilsa inmost of the rivers is generally in the monsoon months ofJuly and August and continues upto October or Novem-ber.

Bhadbhut barrage will be constructed at 5.15 km down-stream of village Bhadbhut and 25 km upstream of rivermouth. It is part of a gargantuan Kalpasar projectpushed by the State Government. Kalpasar (pragmatic

critics hold that Kalpasar is in fact an abbreviation ofKalpanic Sarovar, an imaginary reservoir) project whichis supposed to be one of the biggest in the world pro-

poses to construct a 30 km long dam (one of the longestin the world) across the Gulf of Khambhat betweenBharuch and Bhavnagar districts1. The reservoir is sup-posed to trap the water of twelve rivers that empty theirwater in the gulf, including Narmada, Mahi, Sabarmati,Dhadar and some Saurashtra rivers. It is expected tocreate a reservoir of 2000 sq km area, over five timesthe area of Sardar Sarovar, the reservoir capacity is ex-pected to be over 10 billion cubic meters, that is largerthan the SSP reservoir capacity. The project is beingpushed ignoring serious issues like hydrological-geologi-cal-structural feasibility and needless to say, it’s impacts

Narmada EstuaryThe treasure trove of Hilsa fish and fisherfolk needs protection

Bhadbhut Village Photo: Amruta Pradhan

Hilsa Fish caught in Bhadbhut Estuary Photo: AmrutaPradhan

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on environment and fisherfolk. The project will destroythe coastal and deltaic fisheries and wetlands.

As SANDRP has been highlighting for some time now,riverine fisherfolk are one of the most disadvantaged anddeprived sections in the dam debate throughout the coun-try. It is no different in Narmada. Livelihood of thefisherfolk from Narmada Estuary has been threatenedby several industrial estates established across the dis-trict and is now on the verge of being destroyed. Yield ofHilsa has been steadily decreasing (from 15319 tonnesto 4866 tonnes during 1993 to 20042) since commission-ing of Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) canal and power housein 2006. SSP is built on the Narmada River about 130 kmupstream from the estuary. Another dam, GarudeshwarDam, is under construction downstream from SSP.

Are people here in the estuary aware of the scale of theKalpasar project? What do these local fisherfolk have tosay about this? How have they been coping with theimpacts of SSP?

On the lack of study of the downstream environment,the first paragraph from the chapter on this issue fromthe report of the Independent Review of the SardarSarovar Project instituted by the World Bank is worthquoting in full3:

“From the Sardar Sarovar dam to the ocean, theNarmada River runs for 180 kilometers through a richlowland region which represents about 10% of its catch-ment area. In the course of our environmental reviewwe sought information that described the ecology of thislower reach of the river, the estuary, and near shore re-gion in the Gulf of Cambay. We hoped to find a descrip-tion of the aquatic ecosystem, including parameters in-dicating the quality and quantity of water and its sea-sonal changes, biological species, processes, and resourcelinkages. We looked forward to finding a systematictreatment of flow regimes and geomorphology. We ex-pected to find systematic documentation of resource use,from drinking water to fisheries. We thought there wouldbe documents establishing the kinds of physical, biologi-cal and socioeconomic changes to be expected as the

Sardar Sarovar Projects are brought on stream and moreand more of the natural flow is stored, used or divertedout of the river. We looked for a set of ameliorative mea-sures that would be implemented to mitigate impacts.We thought these measures would be scheduled to be-gin with phased development of the Sardar SarovarProjects. We hoped they would also be related to thecumulative effects of other developments on theNarmada further upstream, in particular the NarmadaSagar Projects, and to the expansion of industrial activ-ity in the downstream rive basin in Gujarat itself.

In all our expectations we have been disap-pointed.” (Emphasis Added.)

These eloquent words hold true till date.

FIELD VISIT

Eager to find answers to these questions, I along withBhupat Solanki a volunteer from Paryavaran Mitra, anAhmedabad based NGO, first met Praveen Madhiwala,a fish trader and exporter. As I explain the purpose ofmy visit to him, his first reaction is “if the dam atBhadbhut comes up, Hilsa will be finished. Not only that,but the dam will prove to be destructive to the entire es-tuary.” He explains, “Tidal flow of water spreads 60 KMfrom sea shore to upstream of the estuary. They are plan-ning to build the barrage just 25 KM upstream of the seashore. What will happen then to the incoming salt waterduring high tide? It is bound to spread laterally alongthe barrage spreading in the coastal region and will bedestructive to the settlements along the coastline. Calcu-lating all these numbers on paper is very different thanexperiencing the destructive power of sea. We know whatthe sea can do.”

Destruction of Hilsa and other fish by SardarSarovar Kamalesh Madhiwala, an advocate fromBhadbhut adds further. “Yield of Hilsa has drasticallyreduced after Sardar Sarowar Dam has been built. Therehas been a reduction of 65 to 70%. Overall water level ofthe estuary has gone down. Post monsoon the river be-comes so dry that we can walk across the riverbed. Thishad never happened in the past before Sardar Sarovar.”When asked about the claim by Narmada Control Au-thority that it constantly releases 600 cusecs (cubic feetper second) of water from the dam to maintain the healthof the river and the estuary, he says “We don’t think wateris released from the SSP. There is no mechanism to moni-tor this. If you approach government they will show youon paper that they release 600 cusecs of water every day.But no one maintains the on ground data.” According tohim the SSP has affected overall fish variety of the estu-ary as well. “A decade ago there used to be 70 to 80 typesof fish varieties available in the estuary. Now we get onlyabout 10 to 12 fish varieties. Earlier along with Hilsamany other riverine species like Prawns, Mahseer etc.

Narmada Estuary in Bhadbhut Photo: Author

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have been commercially equally important which SardarSarovar has vanquished. Now the fisher people’s incomeis solely dependent on Hilsa which is very sensitive spe-cies. Reduction of water flow in the river immediatelyaffects the yield of Hilsa. Even though Hilsa is availableonly for about 4 months of the year, 70% of the income offisherfolk at present is from sale of Hilsa alone.”

Farcical EIA of proposedBhadbhut barrage byNEERI Kamalesh Bhaialso points out several lacu-nae in the EnvironmentalImpact Assessment (EIA)report that National Envi-ronmental Engineering Re-search Institute (NEERI)has prepared for BhadbhutBarrage. “The entire studyhas been an absolute farce.First of all none of the localpeople were aware of anysuch study going on. It also grossly underestimates thetotal population of fisherfolk that will be affected by theBhadbhut dam.” The report considers the total numberof fisherfolk residing in 21 villages to be 12,638 basedon more than a decade old data from Census 20014. Ac-cording to Kamlesh bhai the actual population residingin the estuary region whose livelihood will be affectedby barrage is close to 35 to 40 thousand!

SANDRP had sent detailed critique of the EIA to theGujarat State Environment Impact Assessment Author-ity before the public hearing for the project held on July19, 2013. An excerpt from the critique:

“Unclear objectives of the project The objectives ofthe project stated in the EIA of the project are:

• Protection of water quality of Narmada river fromsalinity due to tidal influence and checking the prob-lems of salinity ingress and deterioration of groundwater quality in the upper reaches of Narmada river;

• Storage of the regulated release of water from SSP

and runoff from free catchment for irrigation, domes-tic and industrial water supply;

• Flood protection of about 400 sq km low lying areacovering 17 villages on the left bank of river Narmada;

• Road connectivity between left and right banks, short-ening route from Surat/Hajira to Dahej region.

The EIA agency has uncritically accepted these objec-tives, without assessing if the barrage with low waterstorage can really fulfill the second the third objectiveand considering the low salinity level reported by theEIA (mainly based on data provided by the project au-thorities, again uncritically accepted by NEERI), is thefirst objective relevant. The fact that the Kalpsar de-partment played such an important role and the factthat it is public knowledge that the barrage is part ofthe propose Kalpsar project should have been taken noteby NEERI. NEERI should have also questioned as towhy is this small part of the larger Kalpsar project ap-plying for such piecemeal clearances which is actually

in violation of the SupremeCourt orders. It should beadded here that the Kalpsarproject had applied for theTOR clearance from UnionMinistry of Env and For-ests. The project came upbefore the MoEF’s ExpertAppraisal Committee onRiver Valley Projects.SANDRP had then sent aletter to the EAC, sayingthat based on informationprovided, the project should

not be considered for clearance. In its 41st meeting inSept 2010, the EAC declined to give TOR clearance tothe project, saying that the documentation provided arehighly inadequate and need to be more holistic anduptodate pre-feasibility report needs to be provided. Theproject there after has not gone back to EAC.

However, a small part of that same project, the Bhadbhutbarrage is now proposed before the Gujarat State Envi-ronment Impact Assessment Authority (http://seiaa.gujarat.gov.in/).”

An edited version of letter about the inadequacies of theEIA report sent from Paryavaran Mitra director toGujarat Pollution Control Board which has been pub-lished by Counterview states that the report fails to as-sess severity of impact on Hilsa and other migratoryfishes and instead tries to imply that fishing activity isonly a part time employment for fisher community, whichis entirely incorrect. The report proposes fish ladder asa mitigation measure with no specific details. Fisherfolkare not impressed. “Tell me madam, have you ever seena fish climb a ladder?” asks Kamlesh bhai laughing.

Hilsa Ice Packed to be transported Photo: Author

Kamlesh Bhai laughs and asks me, “Tell me Ma-dame, have you ever seen a fish climbing a ladder?”

The fisherfolk are not wrong in ridiculing fish lad-ders. Fish ladders have never been taken seriouslyby the proponents who build them. Case in point isFarakka Barrage in West Bengal, where too, a fishlock was supposedly made for Hilsa. It has not beenoperated for over a decade and officials have no ideathat such a thing exists!

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When we arrive at Praveen Macchi’s house, his door isadorned with images of Silvery Hilsa. His family hasbeen involved in fishing from generations. When askedabout estuary’s overall condition after SSP he confirmsthe facts stated earlier by Praveen Bhai and Kamalesh

Bhai. “We don’t think water is released from SSP andeven if it is, it is so meagre that it is nearly useless. Theestuary receives water only when the dam overflows. In2014 the dam overflowed only once which was as late asSeptember. Other than dam overflow only other sourceof water is releases from River Bed Power House of SSP,leakage from below the dam wall and some water fromdownstream streams.” Fish yield of this year is about30% lower than last year when the estuary receivedwater from dam overflow 4 to 5 times in year. “Now wa-ter from SSP has been diverted for hydropower genera-tion. After power generation at Canal Head Power Housewater is released into Narmada canal instead of river/estuary.”

Pressures on Narmada estuary and livelihoods ofthousands

When asked as to how does the Hilsa survive withoutfreshwater water released in the estuary, Praveen Bhaiexplains “As of now Hilsa arrive at least during mon-soon as the river stretch of 130 KM holds rain water. IfBhadbhut barrage is built there will be no free flowing

river stretch to support fish breeding. Yield of Hilsa willbe hard hit and so will be the fishing industry. Entirepopulation dependent on fishing will lose its livelihood.”

Praveen Bhai told me that the fisher people’s coopera-tive ‘Bhadbhut Matsya Udyog Sahakari Mandali’ is pre-paring to file a Public Interest Litigation challengingthe barrage project. Is livelihood of more than 30000people getting affected reason enough to argue for stop-page of the project? Will the courts understand this im-plication? They did not when impact of SSP on fisherpeople was argued earlier. Let us hope judiciary is moresensitive to the fisher people’s issue this time.

Praveen Bhai further informs that the overall salinityof the estuary has gone up due to severely restrictedfreshwater flow into the estuary. Fish diversity has re-duced and riverine fish movement is obstructed due toSSP (Sardar Sarovar Project). Hilsa which would beavailable till December – January is now seen hardlytill September as the salinity levels rise rapidly aftermonsoon. Says Praveen Bhai: “Narmada has been Hilsa’sfavoured habitat. Earlier Hilsa was found in Tapi estu-ary near Surat as well. But after the Ukai dam was con-structed only 2 to 5% of Hilsa arrive at the Tapi estuary.Lives of fisherfolk in the estuary have been devastated.The problem of livelihood of these people became so seri-ous that there are instances where women of the commu-nity had to get into prostitution.”

Concerns of fisherfolk We now move towards thebanks of Narmada to meet artisanal fisher people there.Boats which can contain upto 5 to 6 people are parked

along the banks. Since it is a noon time, hurry burry offish packing is settling down. One by one tempos fromthe market are arriving and picking up the packed fish.As we talk with a bunch of fisher people, their worriesand concerns tumble out. Several issues emerge whiletalking to them. “Government is all set to build a damdestroying our livelihood. As it is government is not ex-tending any kind of support to us river fisherfolk. Nobank provides us with loans” one of them speaks.

Protest March organized on 7th July 2014(Photo by Kamlesh Madhiwala)

Hilsa used as a decorative element Photo: Author

Fisherfolk from Bhadbhut Photo: Author

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1 http://sandrp.in/dams/Why_Modis_54000_crore_l egacy_project_KALPSAR_is_doomed_Nov_2010.pdf2 http://sandrp.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/collapsing-hilsa-can-the-dams-compensate-for-the-loss/3 Page 277, Sardar Sarovar: The Report of the Independent Review, Resource Futures International Inc, Canada, 19924 P. 10 of Executive Summary of EIA Report by NEERI5 P. 15 of Executive Summary of EIA Report by NEERI

“Yield of fish has also reduced due to reduced water levelof the estuary. Sea water gets contaminated by the un-treated effluent that Dahej & other Industrial estates dis-poses in the sea. This sea water that is highly contami-nated with chemicals and heavy metals enters estuaryduring high tide. This polluted water has also affectedthe overall fish quality and there is hardly any freshwa-ter from upstream to dilute it because of the dam. Earliersingle Hilsa fish used to weigh more than two kilograms.Now it hardly weighs one to 1.25 kgs” says another one.

“With all this polluted water how will the fish grow? Itnaturally starves” says yet other.

“If Bhadbhut Barrage comes up, Hilsa will no more comehere. Our livelihood will be destroyed. Government is noteven offering any compensation. No one has been com-pensated for the impact we have already felt due to theSSP.” They all keep talking anxiously.

They further inform that several farmers in Bharuchwho have lost their land in PCPIR project or other in-dustrial estates have shifted to fishing creating morestress in the industry that is already facing a steep de-cline. Farmers, who are new fisherfolk lack the tradi-tional skills or patience and often fence the estuary andsea with fishing nets in hope of catching Hilsa, whichprevents the fishermen’s traditionally used small boatsfrom entering the sea. As they speak, every concernraised is met by a nod by the entire group.

Contrary to this scenario the EIA report summary byNEERI states “… the fresh water storage in upstream ofthe barrage will provide a favourable environment forintensive fresh water fishery and provision of fish lad-der with shiplocks would enhance the fishery activitiesand fetch greater economic benefits to thepeople.”5Fisherfolk when asked about this conclusionshow the other side of the argument. Fisheries depart-ment floats tender for fishing in the dam reservoir. Onlybig contractors can afford to obtain the contracts. “It’snot a job for small fishermen like us. If the dam comesup all these small boats you see will vanish” they say.

Other than the threatened livelihood, the fisher fami-lies in the estuary are also facing several other issues.Wells of fresh water now contain saline water. Many ofthem used to rely on Narmada River for drinking water.Since the river has gone dry after SSP, they no morereceive drinking water from Narmada River. As thewater from the estuary has reduced, the wells whichhave traditionally been an important source of drinkingwater are now dry or saline. Villages which are closer tothe sea are experiencing saline water and also pollutedchemical water ingress. “Many of us are having skin

problems because we have to go in the chemical water.” Iwonder with fishing industry plagued with so many prob-lems if younger generation is at all willing to continuein the same occupation. When asked about this they tellme that for now the traditional skills is the only realeducation the younger generation has.

Many of them have protested the project at the publichearing. “We all are opposing the dam. Building damsmight to do good for contractors, but what about us? Arewe not people?” they ask.

The proposed Garudeshwar Dam on Narmada immedi-ate downstream of SSP will further stop the water flowto estuary as it is designed to pump back to SSP thewater released from River Bed Power House. Thefisherfolk here do not know about this, nor has the gov-ernment bothered to tell them or do any impact assess-ment or prepare any rehabilitation or management plan.The only hope is the petition lying before the NationalGreen Tribunal against the Garudeshwar Dam.

I come back with more questions than answers. PraveenBhai’s home, with his welcoming door adorned with thesilvery Hilsa remains in my thoughts for a long while.

- Amruta Pradhan,SANDRP [email protected]

(Based on field visit September 2014 by the author.)

NEERI’s EIA of Bhadbhut Barrage

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Although infamous for the failure of its large dam ap-proach and the recent dam scam, Maharashtra has alsobeen one of the most progressive states in the countrywhen it comes to watershed development, participatorywater management and a pioneering discourse sur-rounding equitable sharing of available ‘Soppecom’s workon water users associations in Waghad and Palkhed,work of Paani Panchayat, Afarm, etc., in addition to anumber of centrally funded and state funded watershedprograms like Drought Prone Area Program (DPAP),Integrated Wasteland Development Program (IWDP),Adarsh Gaon Yojana, etc. The state has had its share ofstalwarts like Late Dr. Vilasrao Salunkhe, Anna Hazare,Popatrao Pawar, Late Dr. Mukundrao Ghare, Smt.Kalpanatai Salunkhe toname just a few. Theytalked about not only in-creasing water availability,but also allocating andmanaging the availablewater resources equitablyand sustainably and manyother facets of participatorywatershed managementwhich were strongly rootedin equity, gender sensitivity,social realities and ecological sustainability.

This overall context had a role to play even asMaharashtra faced one of its worst droughts in 2012-13.The devastating drought pushed some unique watershed

initiatives across the state, some of which were directlysupported by the state, many without any support.

We looked at a few successful stories of increasing wa-ter availability locally, through watershed or other simple

measures. We also came across some quick-fix water-shed measures which are currently supported by thegovernment and discuss if these can replace the holisticand long-term effort of participatory watershed man-agement and equitable water distribution. The examplesbelow are based on site visits, interviews and some onnews from regional agricultural dailies and they are in-dicative in nature1. We have talked with the key peoplebehind the initiatives to understand how the workevolved.

Naigaon village in chronically drought proneAhmednagar desilts its village tank Naigaon is asmall village of around 5000 people in Jamkhed taluka

of Ahmednagar District ofMaharashtra. AlthoughKhairi Irrigation Project onKhairi River in Jamkhed isjust 3 kms from the village,it does not save Naigaonfrom water scarcity. Sincethe past few years, Naigaonhas been increasingly facingacute water scarcity in post-February months and itsdependence on tankers hasincreased.

The village has a tank: The Naigaon Tank, constructedby the Water Resources Department after the greatdrought of 1972. It extends over 42 hectares of land.However due to lack of maintenance, the tank was siltedand its water storage had decreased substantially. The2012-13 drought was the last straw for Naigaon. Thetank, silted up and hardly holding any water was aneyesore for the villagers. In the summer of 2013, morethan 1500 people of Naigaon came together to desilt theNaigaon tank by hand and by machines. The collective

Local Initiatives for drought-proofing Maharashtra

Sarpanch of Hiware Bazar Popatrao PawarPhoto: Business Standard

The common thread running through success sto-ries of watershed management in Maharashtraseems to be ‘local initiative’. It was experiencedagain that having local communities at the drivingseat, with encouraging guidance from the expertsand help from government agencies can lead to posi-tive results.

Dry landscape of Jamkhed. Photo: jamkhed.wordpress.com

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effort resulted in removing over 3 lakh cubic meters ofsilt from the tank!

Being farmers, they realized the value of this silt and itwas spread over more than 250 hectares of agriculturalland. The Tahsildar of Jamkhed Taluk, seeing the en-thusiasm and initiative of the farmers, waived royaltyon the silt. But apart from this, the initiative did nottake any help from the government. Why did they dothat? We asked Watershed Committee Chair SureshUgale. “We decided to get together and do something inlate 2012-early 2013. We were afraid that if governmentschemes like MNREGA take time in sanctioning, thenwe will lose the monsoon of 2013. We did not want to losea single monsoon and did all the work entirely on volun-tary basis.”

In addition to desilting, the villagers, along with agri-culture department carried out watershed works in thesurrounding region which included Continuous ContourTrenching, nallah bunding and gulley plugging.

The results are evident. Due to desilting of the villagetank, water levels for 30 to 40 surrounding wells haveincreased. Farmers have been lifting water directly fromthe tank too. Watershed works have also resulted in in-crease in water levels of other wells and an increase insoil moisture. This in turn has lead to more crop diver-sity. In kharif of 2013, 35 ha of additional land was cul-tivated with multiple crops like cotton, soybean, mung,urad, sugarcane and 18 ha of land was under horticul-ture. The villagers proudly proclaim that the lands wheresilt was spread are more productive. In the words ofYogesh Shinde, “My light soil didnot allow me much crop choice. Butthe silt from the tank allowed meto grow jowar and udid ( blackgram, a lentil) and fodder crops.We’ve indeed been fortunate thisyear.”

At the same time, it is worryingthat area under sugarcane is alsoincreasing. When asked about this,the watershed Committee chairsays, “Yes, we’ve been trying to ir-rigate all new sugarcane by drip.But that is difficult. The subsidiesdon’t reach the poorer farmers whoneed it the most.” But it is clearthat without active efforts, morewater can mean more water guz-zling sugarcane in Naigaon.

No tankers for Pingori villagethis year Pingori village inPurandar taluka of Pune districtis surrounded by hillocks fromthree sides. 80% of the land is hills

and only 20% is cultivable. Although Pune region has avery high density of large dams, no canal water reachesPingori. Veer dam lies about 15 to 20 km downstream ofthe village and plays no role in water supply to the vil-lage.

In 2013 the village faced acute drought. People who heldlands on the hilly tracts were left with no option but tosell offs their lands. In the words of Babasaheb Shinde,a veteran from the village, “”There was hardly any in-come source in village without water. People were mi-grating to cities. We had to do something.”As the situa-tion turned alarming, some villagers came together. Itwas accepted by all that the key to their challenge lay inwater availability. Pingori had a village tank which wasbadly in need of maintenance and desilting. Despite sev-eral follow ups with Water Conservation Department,no desilting was undertaken by the department, sitingnon-availability of funds as the reason.

Left with no choice, the villagers of Pingori came to-gether. Hundreds of villagers raised funds for desiltingthe tanks by working on NREGS schemes. Though theyraised a considerably sum, it was still not sufficient forthe entire desilting operation. Here, they were helpedby Dagdusheth Ganapati Temple Trust.

With some help like this, Pingori undertook desiltingwork for nearly 45 days in summer 2013 by manuallabour and machines. Villagers told SANDRP that morethan 200,000 cubic meter silt was removed from thesingle tank and spread on agricultural fields. Desiltingnot only increased water holding capacity of the tank,

Desilted “Ganesh Sagar” of Pingori village Photo:www.dagdushetganapati.org

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but also its recharge. Following the monsoon of 2013,the village tank held more water and water table in thesurrounding areas also increased.

Several years ago when Pingori tank held more water,it had fish in it and fishery was existing, if not thriving.Silt and droughts killed this initiative. But with desilting,local youth introduced over 2 lakh fish seed in the tankand even formed a Fisheries Society. In addition todesilting, the villagers have also undertaken watershedworks in nearby hills, especially continuous contourtrenches (CCTs) which has helped significantly in rais-ing water table and augmenting stream flows. Cumula-tive gain of desilting has been increased cultivation onover 300 acres of land and also increased fodder avail-ability.

Pingori has a remarkable lady Sarpanch Ms. PallaviBhosale. Ms. Bhosale tells us “I know what it is not evento have drinking water in your home. As a Sarpanch in2012-13 I was deeply saddened as I had to call for tank-ers every other day. I could see women from my villagewalk for miles for water. So many horticultural planta-tions had to be hacked. It was very disturbing. The en-tire village stood together and hence this could happen.”

Today Pingori has not called for a single tanker as yet,although the Purandar block has received less than 25%rainfall in this monsoon till date. How does Pingori avoidwater guzzling crops, now that Pingori tank has water?“As a gramsabha we don’t allow water guzzling cropslike sugarcane in Pingori. Our water is very precious andwe cannot give more water to a few.”

Medsinga village in Taluka & District of Osmanabadis a village of 2700 population. Drought and water scar-city is a regular feature in Osmanadabad in Marathwadaand Medsinga is no exception. As SANDRP indicatedduring the rought of 2012-13, water from major dams inOsmanbad-Latur regions is almost exclusively divertedto sugarcane and sugar factories, leaving smaller vil-lages high and dry.

The village has a tank built by the villagers themselves,25-30 years ago. Villagers decided to desilt this tank andincrease its water holding capacity.

Here, they built recharge shaft inside the tank bed toincrease groundwater recharge. This was a 13m x 7m x2m pit with 2ft x 2ft pit below that followed by a borewell 70 ft deep. Twine was wound around the borewellcasing pipe before inserted into the shaft. The shaft wasthen filled with pebbles to facilitate water percolation.

The villagers also repaired about 16 cement bunds con-structed about 10 years back. These bunds were leakingas parts of cement had washed away. The expenses ofabout Rs 7 lakhs was covered by Holistic WatershedDevelopment and Mahatma Phule Water ConservationProgramme.

The cumulative impact of desilting, recharge and re-paired bunds was increased water availability in 27 wellsand 32 borewells. There are 2 percolation tanks in thevillage constructed by Water Conservation Department.They have however lost their capacity due to siltation.Next phase of work plan includes desilting of these tanks.

Gawdewadi village, a model of community drivewatershed management Gawadewadi in Ambegaontaluka, Pune district is a village with a total area of 1243Ha and total population of 3190. After drought of 1972-73 the village was dependent on tankers for drinkingwater during summer, agricultural productivity was low

and a large number of people had migrated to Pune andMumbai in search of employment.

In 1985, residents of Gawadewadi with local leadershipof Anna Pimpale visited Ralegan Siddhi village in Parnertaluka of Ahmednagar District. Impressed by the holis-tic development of the Ralegan Siddhi the residents weredetermined to transform Gawadewadi. Vanarai, a vol-untary organization based in Pune that was approachedby the villagers agreed to act as a catalyst in this pro-cess of development. Soil and water conservation worksstarted in 1991. Technical inputs needed for the water-shed development works were given partly by Irriga-tion Department and partly by Agricultural department.Along with these funds no grazing and no cutting of treeswas diligently followed. Since there are no landless cattlebreeders following no open grazing regulation was easier.

There are four catchment areas spread over 1400 Ha.Adopting top to bottom approach for watershed treat-ment Continuous Contour Trenches (CCT) (Figure 2),loose boulders and stone bunds were constructed on theridges; soil bunds, cement bunds, gabion structures andpercolation tanks were constructed at the bottom of thecatchment. CCT works on the ridges is carried out byforest department. Under social forestry programmeVillage Panchayat has planted 1,10,000 trees on 34 acreland.

Horticulture in Gawadewadi Photo: Amruta Pradhan,SANDRP

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Participatory soil and water conservation work startedfor improving water availability in the village for drink-ing and agricultural purposes has led to multiple otherinitiatives like cooperative dairy, gobar gas plants forthe households, horticulture etc. A chain of benefits hasunfolded over more than ten years of hard work put inby the villagers. The village is now tanker free, cropshave diversified, agricultural production has gone up andso have income levels. Most rewarding benefit has beenthe homecoming of more than 165 families which hadmigrated to Pune or Mumbai in search of work.

Taking a close look at all these stories shows that theessential element behind success was the active publicparticipation. This participation and ownership of thework resulted in soil and water conservation works attimes even when no funding was available. InGawdewadi this participation was also responsible forspurring of other allied developmental initiatives in thevillage which almost took a form of movement. Villag-

Many facets of Gawadewadi’s success Photo: Amruta Pradhan, SANDRP

1 http://www.agrowon.com/Agrowon/index.htm2 http://sandrp.in/irrigation/MAHA_Irrigation_Scam_Nov2012.pdf

ers voluntarily participated in various trainingprogrammes and diversified their livelihood options,improved farming practices, increased crop variety, in-creased milk production and in turn increased their in-come. In this sense such eco-system based works for con-servation of natural resources like land and water be-come ‘active solutions’ as against the ‘passive solutions’such as dams which come at a tremendous social andenvironmental cost.

It is worth noting that over 40% of India’s under con-struction dams are in Maharashtra. The state has spentabout Rs 75000 crores over the last decade and will needto spend about Rs 76000 crores to complete the underconstruction projects2. When Maharashtra is on such anirrigation spree, highlighting and replicating stories likeGawadewadi which demonstrate success of small scalesolutions is definitely the need of the hour.

-Amruta Pradhan and Parineeta Dandekar,SANDRP

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SANDRP recently sent a submission to Expert AppraisalCommittee (EAC) regarding inadequacy and shortcom-ings of Environmental Impact Assessment report (EIAreport) of Rupin HEP (45 MW) from Himachal Pradesh.The project is (as stated in EIA Report) a run of the riverscheme in DODRA KWAR tehsil of SHILMA District ofHimachal Pradesh with a barrage on river Nargani as adiversion structure to increase the flow of the river Rupinfor increased output of the electricity generation unit.The project is located within 10 KM of Govind PashuVihar Sanctuary. Terms of Reference (TORs) weregranted to the project on 13.09.2010. Validity of the TORwas extended twice; first till September 2013 and thentill September 2014. However the project was consid-ered by EAC in its 78th meeting in October 2014 for grantof EC i.e. after the third deadline was also over.

Cover page of the EIA report says that it was preparedin December 2011. The entire critical baseline data usedin the report is of 2010, four years old, which is a grossviolation of the MEFCC and EIA notification norms andshould not have been the basis for impact prediction. Inthe EIA report the project is misleadingly presented asa Run-of-the-River scheme (ROR) when in fact the re-port talks about morning and evening peaking storage.Several terms granted in TOR are not complied with.

TORs stipulated that EIA is to examine the cascadingeffect the project, the EIA should provide a clear mapshowing the approved/ under construction/ completedHEPs on River Rupin and Nargani both upstream anddownstream of the project. EIA however fails to make amention of Rupin III, IV and V projects are proposeddownstream on Rupin River downstream of the projectand Naitwar Mori (60 MW) is proposed 580 m down-stream of the confluence of river Tons and Rupin.

Though the EIA report states that seven options wereassessed by the technical consultant, it gives no detailsof these options. The report also misses out on detailedstudies like study of Natural Springs, socio economicprofile of the affected area with list of project affectedpeople, seismic impacts etc. which were stipulated inthe TOR.

Impact prediction is too generic with no assessment andquantification. The EIA report merely states the likelyimpacts in 2 or 3 sentences. Several important impactslike impacts of underground construction, quarrying andblasting on geophysical environment, wildlife, fishes etc.are missing and none of the serious impacts have beenquantified

While issuing the TOR EAC has noted that Govind Pashu

Rupin HEP (45MW) in Himachal Pradesh recommended EnvironmentalClearance despite highly problematic EIA Report

The beautiful Rupin Valley Photo: travelblog.org

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Vihar is within 10 KM from the project area and hadthus referred the project to NBWL for obtaining wildlifeclearance. Assessment of impacts on wildlife thus as-sumes more importance. EIA report however makes NOimpact prediction on the wildlife. On the contrary thereport comes up with ‘positive impacts’ such as “Habitatimprovement through afforestation/regeneration.” and“Development and improvement of water bodies.”

The report completely misses out on the cumulativeimpacts in terms of disaster potential of the area, down-stream impacts, hydro peaking, tunneling, blasting,changes in silt flows, geological disturbance caused, seis-mic impacts etc.

The EIA mentions a study “Environmental Flow Assess-ment report for Rupin HEP by R S Envirolink Technolo-gies Pvt. Ltd., July 2012”, but the study is not included

in the EIA-EMP as mandated by TORs.The report keeps mentioning “15% mini-mum environmental flows” at a numberof places when EAC’s norms themselvestalk of 20% average lean season, 25% non-lean- non monsoon season and 30% mon-soon season flows as eflows.

Himachal Pradesh has been facing somevery specific issues due to cascade hydro-power development. Some of them includ-ing landslides and land destabilization dueto blasting and tunneling, impacts of peak-ing projects, drying up of rivers, etc. Inspite of the obvious fact that site specificissues need site specific mitigation mea-sures it is shocking to see that the EMP ofRupin is extensively based on EMP Reportof Lethang HEP in Sikkim which was pre-pared by the same agency (Asian Consult-ing Engineers Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi). Apartfrom some information like tables whichinclude costing for the mitigation mea-sures, most of the other details are thesame.

Despite of such severe shortcomingspointed out by SANDRP, EAC in its 78th

meeting granted EC to the project.SANDRP submission was forwarded to thedeveloper and was asked to give point wiseresponses by the EAC. The minutes of thismeeting incorporate responses provided bythe developer to SANDRP submission. Theresponses are as inadequate as the EIAreport. Many of the vital parts of the studywhich the developer claims to have sub-mitted have not been included in the EIAdocument made available in the public do-main. Most of the counter arguments pro-vided by the agency are devoid of any fac-tual evidence.

It is disappointing to see that EAC choosesto ignore such serious issues and grant EC.When can we expect Acche Din for Envi-ronmental Governance?

- Amruta Pradhan, SANDRP,[email protected] in River Rupin. Photo: www.raftinglife.blogspot.com

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We think decision of the NCA to raise the height of theSardar Sarovar dam by 16.76 meters is unjustified andunwise. It will cause huge additional displacement, whenrehabilitation of the people affected even at the currentheight is incomplete. As everybody agrees and experi-ence has shown, even at current height, Gujarat is in aposition to take the water stored to virtually any part ofthe designed command area, and can draw its share ofwater as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal(NWDT) award. Moreover, it has been able to utiliseonly a small portion of the water available at currentheight. So there are no compelling reasons for raisingthe height on this count. Under these circumstances,the decision taken by the newly formed government atthe centre and the NCA to raise the height of the damwithin two weeks of oath by the new government is ahasty, unwise and disastrous decision. We earnestly ap-peal to you and the government to immediately with-draw the decision to raise the height of the dam.

The issues related to the dam have festered over morethan 30 years of its troubled history because govern-ments have tended to take a legalistic stand rather thaninitiate an inclusive dialogue on the substantive issuesabout the project amongst all concerned, particularlythose adversely affected. We appeal to you to start suchan inclusive process of reflection and dialogue to arriveat a broad social consensus on four critical issues aboutthe Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) as outlined below.

1. Height of the dam:

What is the height of dam needed for Gujarat to utiliseits share of Narmada waters and take water to all itsdesignated command? Gujarat is in a position to takewater anywhere in the designated command area.Gujarat may be able to utilise its share of Narmadawaters at current height and no further height increasemay be required on this count. Doing away with the in-stallation of the 16.8 meter high gates does not haveany structural implications for the dam. So far as powergeneration is concerned, major power benefit is transi-tional, falling off as the states utilise their share of wa-

ter and final residual power benefit is small. Moreover,even today, as per Central Electricity Authority (CEA)figures, at current height SSP generated 5,882 MillionUnits of Power in 2013-14, which is more than what SSPwas envisaged to generate. The biggest beneficiary ofpower generated at SSP is Madhya Pradesh, but it formsa small percentage of its present power capacity andgeneration while virtually the entire brunt of massivedisplacement has to be borne by it. So, it may be optimalfor Madhya Pradesh to trade off much of its transitionalpower benefit with the greatly reduced submergence anddisplacement with a dam at the current height. Thusthere is a distinct possibility that optimal solutions ex-ist at current height and they need to be explored.

2. Equitable distribution, sustainable use andparticipatory and efficient management ofstored water:

Given the ability to carry water to all parts of Gujaratat current height, it is more important to concentrateon issues of how water is used now. Criticism on thesecounts comes from some of the strongest proponents ofthe project. The project has been criticised, among otherthings, on account of gross under-utilisation of the storedwater, irrigation water not reaching the drought proneareas of Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat, diver-sion of water for unplanned uses (for example, river frontdevelopment, urban and industrial use south ofSabarmati), non existence of water users’ associations(WUAs) for most part of the command, lack of properdrainage in the command area, and inefficient and in-equitable use.

3. Status of displacement and rehabilitation:

There is a large gap in the perceptions and articulationsof state and various groups and individuals includingthose from the adversely affected, both about the exactnumbers involved as well as about the quality of reha-bilitation. While the authorities have generally beenclaiming satisfactory rehabilitation, there is every indi-cation that the rehabilitation even at current height fallsquite short of what is legally required or what basic hu-

Appeal to revoke the unjustified decision of increasingSardar Sarovar Dam’s Height any further

Even as the state and central government and the Narmada Control Authority are pushing for increase inheight of Sardar Sarovar Dam from 121.92 mts to 138.68 meters, eminent academics, activities, research-ers and citizens have written to Ms. Uma Bharati, Minister, Ministry of Water Resources, River Develop-ment and Ganga Rejuvenation with a copy to Minister of State for Water Resources, River Developmentand Ganga Rejuvenation, Ex Officio Chairman and Executive Member of the Narmada Control Authorityabout the serious problems entailed in such an effort. Excerpts from the letter below.

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Edited by Himanshu Thakkar at 86-D, AD Block, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi - 88.Printed at Sun Shine Process, B -103/5, Naraina Indl. Area Phase - I, New Delhi - 110 028

NOTE: Please note that we are continuing the publication of DRP as a non RNI publication, so this is forprivate circulation only. DRP is not for sale. Those who have subscribed will continue to get printed copies tilltheir subscription lasts. For any support towards continuing publication of DRP, please write to:[email protected].

man justice demands. Since the submergence and dis-placement that would take place between 121.92 metresand 138.68 metres would be massive, there is every in-dication that effective rehabilitation would be intractableand virtually impossible. It becomes much more urgentto bridge this gap and come to a consensus on the actualextent and quality of rehabilitation already carried outbefore causing further massive displacement.

4. Environment and Climate Change:

Environment and climate change issues that are impor-tant in the long run have not been given due attention.Downstream impacts of SSP on environment and liveli-hoods have not been properly assessed, environment-flows and requirements have not been studied and man-agement plans have not been formulated or imple-mented. Climate change experts emphasise the impor-tance to reevaluating the costs, benefits, impacts andoptimality of projects and it is high time we initiatedstudies and discussion on these with respect to the SSP. If rejuvenation of rivers is to receive a central place inwater resources development and the Narmada is toremain alive these issues need to be brought into dis-cussion and resolved as soon as possible.

Good governance entails making socially and environ-mentally just decisions within a deliberative democraticframework and it is the lack of this that has resulted inthree decades history of conflict and polarisation aroundSSP. We sincerely hope you will put us on a path of bet-ter governance, the professed aim of the new govern-ment, by revoking the decision to increase the height ofthe SSP from the current 121.92 m to 138.68 m and ini-tiating a comprehensive dialogue on the substantive is-sues surrounding it.

Signed by: A. C. Bhagabati, A. Latha, A. Vaidyanathan,Achyut Das, Amita Baviskar, Ashish Kothari, BharatPatankar, Brij Gopal, Devaki Jain, Dinesh Abrol, DunuRoy, Ghanshyam Shah, Himanshu Thakkar, HimanshuUpadhyaya, K. J. Joy, Kanchan Chopra, M K Prasad,Mamata Dash, Manoj Mishra, N. C. Narayanan, NafisaBharot, Prashant Bhushan, Rajeswari Sarala Raina,Ramaswamy R. Iyer, Rohit Prajapati, S. Janakarajan,Sanjay Kak, Seema Kulkarni, Sharachchandra Lele,Shripad Dharmadhikary, Sudarshan Iyengar,Sudhirendar Sharma, Suhas Paranjape, Vimalbhai,Viren Lobo.

Sardar Sarovar Dam Photo: Himanshu Thakkar

Why is the IIT Consortium acting like a hydropower lobby?Dr Brij Gopal too endorsed WII recommendation that the 24 projects should be dropped. The peer review was sought by the Central

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