It is a 260.5-meter high earth-rock dam that spans the Bhagirathi River in Tehri just after it joins the Bhilangana River. It is responsible for the creation of a reservoir to generate electricity and provide irrigation facilities, and an underground power plant with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. This high-risk project has been boycotted for nearly 25 years.
In the end, nearly 100,000 people were displaced, including those living in some of the most fertile and beautiful villages in the region.
voiced
resistance movement by Velendra Dutt Sakrani, An older freedom fighter.Gandhian environmentalist when he was seriously ill Sandrall Bahuguna Keep moving.
Bahuguna was a close friend of Edward Goldsmith, who was ecologist. Goldsmith was close to both leaders and has widely reported on their movements in the long resistance.
The project, located in high-risk conditions, was initially accepted with some reluctance even by senior officials.
“Not only will Tehri’s dam be one of the tallest structures of its kind in the world, but it will create a complex set of technical issues,” said YKMurthy, former chairman of the Central Water Commission.
With growing concerns about the project’s safety, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered a review in 1980.
Safety
This was assigned to an expert working group composed of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
When the report was submitted in 1986, the chair of the working group complained about the “endless dogmatism” of the dam authorities and stated that the Tehri dam site was not suitable for the construction of a 260m high dam. He explicitly suggested stopping work on the project.
However, the authorities managed to manipulate things to continue the project. Then in 1990, the TDP was comprehensively assessed by the Environmental Assessment Committee (EAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
After scrutinizing the data, meeting several experts and activists, and visiting the dam site area and village, the committee concluded: “The proposed Tehri dam project should not be accepted because it does not merit an environmental permit.”
Although the EAC report reviewed all important aspects of the TDP, it concluded that security factors alone were sufficient to prevent approval of the project.
fold
“Noting the unacceptable risks involved and the extremely poor state of readiness of the project, it would be irresponsible to clean up the Tehri Dam as currently proposed,” it said.
The Commission stated the hazards of the TDP: “Considering that during the dam’s use, a strong earthquake of magnitude above 8.0 on the Richter scale is certain to occur in the area, and considering that the dam’s design did not provide for such an earthquake, the Commission had no choice but to It can be concluded that the construction of the Tehri Dam involves totally unreasonable risks.
“If the dam collapsed, the magnitude of the ensuing disaster reinforces the committee’s view that it would be irresponsible to approve the dam’s construction.”
Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC) has not paid due attention to the hazards and risks of TDP. “Despite repeated requests, THDC did not provide the committee with a risk analysis of the impact of the dam failure on life, property and cultural heritage,” the report said.
“Our own preliminary calculations indicate that if the Tehri dam collapses, it will cause flooding that will destroy Rishikesh and Haridwar. This wave will wash away most of the settlements around the area.”
calculate
“The frequent occurrence of earthquakes caused by RIS will be a source of danger for residents near the reservoir,” it added.
Professor James Brunn, a renowned seismologist, said: “We have to conclude that the proposed Tehri Dam location is one of the most dangerous in the world from a seismic point of view. According to the international organization’s hazard rating There is no doubt that the Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) has a very high hazard level.”
“Never a large Tehri-type rockfill dam has ever been tested by the shaking that an earthquake in the area could produce, and we don’t know how the dam will react.
“The risk factor (in the ICOLD classification) is extreme given the number of people living downstream. In this context, ICOLD’s announcement of a fully state-of-the-art dynamic design analysis of the dam in response to a specified acceleration time history, is mandatory sexual.”
A key factor in the final approval of the TDP by a special high-level committee of the Indian government (after the EAC refused to approve the project) was the calculation of peak ground acceleration.
displaced
This calculation is based on the work of Professor Brune. But when the calculations were shown to Professor Brune, he replied: “The calculations used are incorrect, taken out of context and outdated, and in my opinion the calculations for the maximum acceleration of 0.22g cannot be given much weight.”
The TDP was purged by the authorities while ignoring the reports of their own committee of experts and misrepresenting the views of prominent experts.
This shows that some authorities, as well as major construction companies, are willing to ignore the most critical safety and environmental issues in order to push hydropower projects forward. As a result, people in the Himalayas are at serious risk of eventual displacement.
I visited the displaced people in the submerged town of Tehri and surrounding villages several times at their resettlement site. As people migrate from mountain villages to plains, there are many inherent problems in the migration process and some adjustment problems are faced. Some of them were soon displaced a second time.
Unfortunately, too many people in the Himalayas are displaced, not just because of dams, but also highways, infrastructure and tourism projects.
shift
When my report on their problem was published, I was contacted by several early dam projects in the Himalayas.
Imagine my surprise when several people were expelled from the inundation site of the Bakla Dam, the first major project of its kind in India after independence, and they came to my house one day to talk about their problems. I learned that although they were displaced in the 1950s, they were still not properly resettled.
similar dilemma Pangba Deportees and resettlement-related cases involving disputes between States continued.
More recently, the dam-led development model is spreading to several new areas in the Himalayan region, and even predetermined areas with special protected constitutional status inhabited by tribal communities. Elsewhere, peaceful resistance to this dam-led development model is growing.
Fertile land suitable for cultivation in the Himalayas is limited. It takes generations to build terraced farms. Hence why more care should be taken here than in the plains to minimise the displacement of farmers.
mining
Due to the high proportion of men migrating from villages, women take on more agricultural responsibilities here. Women-dominated livelihoods tend to be more prevalent in these villages.
In recent years, highway and related tunnel projects and highway widening projects have been emerging. While this resulted in the outright eviction of many people, careless construction and the excessive felling of thousands of trees also resulted in multiple landslides and threats to the homes of several villagers.
When I visited one such village on the Parwanoo Solan highway in Himachal Pradesh, Mangoti Nande Katara, They complained that their entire settlement had become extremely unstable and dangerous due to landslides and other damage during road widening work.
Eventually, they may be forced to seek shelter elsewhere. A survey of other villages on another section of the widened road revealed that several other villages were also severely damaged in the process of widening the road.
Mining activities, especially over-extraction of sand in rivers, have proven to be very detrimental in terms of aggravating and reducing disasters. Water absorption capacity rivers and other water sources. Despite court directives to monitor such accuracy, some mining mafia continue to do so.
risk
There are growing concerns that what is happening on the Himalayan border near China could pose even more serious environmental and security risks.This is especially true in recent cases Chinese activities Related to dams and hydroelectric power.
While China has built some dams on the Brahmaputra (known in China as the Brahmaputra), the biggest threat is being debated in the context of the big project.The planned installed capacity of the project is three times that of the project Three Gorges Project, It is currently the country with the highest installed capacity in the world.
It is widely believed that construction of such a huge project in a known earthquake zone is very risky, with severe downstream implications not only for India but also for Bangladesh.
This is in terms of flood and earthquake hazards, reduced off-season flows and reduced fertile silt deposits. The difficulty of regularly sharing water data could exacerbate India’s problems, given its history of hostile relations.
A free debate in India could at least make the risks widely known, but it may not happen in China either.
effort
The Himalayas have good reasons to drastically change development priorities in order to minimise safety and sustainability risks.
There is growing support for ecologically-conservative farming methods, as well as the regeneration of natural forests, community renewable energy projects, handicrafts and well-planned ecotourism. There is also support for more local handicrafts and folk art, as well as improved education and health services.
This model of development has been used for many years Wimla Bahuguna Sunderlal Bahuguna is a senior Gandhian activist who has been instrumental in opposing the dam-led growth model.
Sandral Bahuguna died last year. Shortly before this, I visited their home in Dehradun to show them the book I just wrote about their lives and the resistance movement they inspired.
Vimla Bahuguna told me: “People ask us what we got for putting so much effort into opposing the Tehri dam when we were older. After all our efforts, the government continues to build it. Our answer is that the opposition is An important part of what we need and what we want to create in the Himalayas.”
this author
Bharat Dogra is the Honorary Convenor and Activist of Save Earth Now. His most recent books include: man on machine, planet in danger, Protect the Earth for Children and Vimla and Sunderlal Bahuguna – Chipko movement and fight against Tehri dam project in Garhwal Himalaya.
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