A decade after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the issue of commencing new hydroelectric projects (HEP) on the Ganga following the flash floods in Kedarnath which killed over 5,000 persons, a panel appointed by the apex court in 2024 has given the nod to five controversial HEPs on the Ganga and its tributaries in Uttarakhand. This recommendation comes even after the panel members from the Jal Shakti and the environment ministries, two earlier committees and environmentalists have voiced their apprehensions about the impact of HEPs on the Ganga’s natural flow and ecosystem health, and on areas falling in seismic zones, citing instances in Uttarakhand.
The Supreme Court-appointed panel, headed by cabinet secretary T.V. Somanathan, comprised the secretaries of the three union ministries of Jal Shakti, environment and power, along with the chief secretary of Uttarakhand. The question is, why is this panel overlooking the advice of its own government about the impact of HEPs on a river revered as “Mother Ganga” and on a state known as “Devbhoomi,” or land of the gods? After all, restoring the Ganga to her pristine unpolluted flow and elevating Uttarakhand for its spiritual significance to Hindus has been a major concern of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for the past decade. Yet, little has been done to keep this promise.
Uttarakhand is home to India’s biggest river system, the Ganga. Its water not only sustains the vast Gangetic plains but also carries a deep spiritual significance for the vast majority of Hindus. Due to its many tributaries across the state, Uttarakhand has also been projected as a hydro-electric generation hotspot. Big dams like the much-publicised Tehri dam, which went through despite protests about its impact on the river and on the fragile ecological balance of the region, are a case in point.
However, it appears that even government ministries are voicing these concerns about HEPs. The major ecological devastation caused by the Kedarnath flash floods laid bare the consequences of unchecked “development” in the Himalayan region for which citizens paid a heavy price and the government suffered heavy losses.
Because the damage was so alarming, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the issue of new hydroelectric projects on the Ganga. It initially imposed a moratorium on granting clearances for new HEPs and directed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to set up a committee to evaluate their impact.
As stated in a report in the Indian Express, of the three committees that were set up, the first in 2014, led by environmentalist Ravi Chopra, concluded that HEPs had worsened the Kedarnath disaster. It recommended abandoning 24 projects that had been proposed. In 2015, the ministry constituted a second committee under IIT-Kanpur’s Vinod Tare after HEP companies approached the apex court for permission to get on with their projects. The Tare panel said that the six projects with clearances posed grave ecological risks.
In 2020, a third committee headed by B.P. Das proposed granting approval to 28 projects. This number was pared down to seven after a meeting in the prime minister’s office in 2021, the reason being that work had already begun on those projects.
Coming full circle in August this year, the top court asked why only seven projects had been given the nod and proceeded to set up the Somanathan committee to look into the Das committee report so as to decide on the remaining 21 projects.
The Somanathan committee in its report approved five of the seven projects on the grounds that the positives outweighed the negative impact that might stem from the projects. The reasoning was that approving them would be in the national interest.
In granting approval to the five projects, the panel set aside the serious concerns of the Jal Shakti ministry, namely that the B.P. Das committee report had not considered the cumulative impact of the projects on the Alaknanda, Bhilangana and Dhauliganga rivers. The environment ministry also stated that the Das committee had overlooked crucial issues such as flash floods, floods caused by glacial lake outburst, landslides, and seismic activities, all of which affect the region’s fragile ecology.
The ministry had also pointed out that recent disasters in Uttarakhand, including the Joshimath flash floods and land subsidence, and the Chamoli earthquake, had occurred near the sites of the projects recommended by the Das committee. According to the Indian Express report, during the November 13 hearing, the central government asked for eight weeks to come up with the “final decision” in the Supreme Court.
Also read: In Rebuilding Kedarnath, a New Disaster in the Making
Can the Ganga and her tributaries withstand the weight of more hydel projects without suffering catastrophic consequences, be it with regard to its own and the region’s ecology, or existing hydel projects downstream? All these are consequences from which humans certainly cannot be insulated. Can we risk more Kedarnath-like situations or more pressure on the Tehri dam, which can have terrifying consequences for those living on the plains? More recently, the Himachal Pradesh floods were an example of what happens when governments blindly “plan” development in the Himalayan region.
The proposed projects are expected to produce about 600 MW of electricity. Can the same amount not be generated by other means? The answer is yes, it can be done. The only question is why it is not considered.
These shortsighted HEP projects will not benefit the river, the Himalayan ecosystems, the people dependent on them or the country. So, for whose benefit are they being proposed? For whose benefit is it acceptable to damage the flow of a river eulogised as “Maa Ganga,” a river linked to the faith and sustenance of millions of Indians, and one that Modi vowed to restore to its pure flow through his Namami Gange programme? For whose benefit is it acceptable to risk the lives of Indians entwined with the Ganga? One can only wonder.
Indra Shekhar Singh is an independent agri-policy analyst and writer.
