When it comes to the crunch, the BJP government in Uttarakhand is making no bones about its preference to temples over hydel projects.
The recent assurance by Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank to protect Dhari Devi temple from the site of GVK’s 330-Mw Alaknanda hydel project is also being seen as a step to pursue BJP’s saffron agenda, analysts said.
But the move has raised more concerns in the hydropower sector, which has already taken a beating owing to the scrapping of a series of hydel projects last year. All these scrapped projects were in the government sector only. But this time, infrastructure major GVK, in the private sector, is facing the heat of the saffron agenda.
Officials of Larsen and Toubro (L&T), GMR, Lanco and a host of other private players, whose projects are under constructed in the hill state, are watching the developments related to the GVK’s project with a baited breath. Most of these companies are facing the wrath of social activist, who are up in arms against the construction of these projects on rivers like Bhagirathi, Mandakini, Alaknanda and other tributaries of the Ganga.
“We can do very little when the government itself is not taking any initiative to boost the hydropower sector,” said a top official of a private company which is developing a couple of projects in the state.
The concern stems from Nishank’s assurance on Dhari Devi temple following which former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati has resumed her fast at Haridwar. This time, she is targeting the centre with a call to review all hydel projects on the holy river Ganga and its tributaries. She has threatened that she would only live on water and juice till her all demands are met.
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But Bharati’s opposition against hydel projects, big or small, is not new in Uttarakhand. In previous occasions, the VHP and other Sangh parivar organisations had launched various agitations against these projects. But these agitations were ignored by the previous Congress government.
It was only in 2008, when BJP government suspended two of its major projects in the wake of an indefinite fast by G D Agrawal, a retired IIT professor who was being supported by saffron leaders.