 "Uma Bharti")
Despite written objections from Union water resources and Ganga rejuvenation minister Uma Bharati, the Union environment ministry has done a volte face and conditionally allowed five new dams on tributaries of the Ganga in the Uttarakhand hills. In doing so, the environment ministry cited a 1916 agreement between the then British rulers, six kings, members of the Hindu Sabha and Madan Mohan Malviya, and an expert body report, which is still under consideration of an inter-ministerial group of power, water resources and environment ministries.
The environment ministry has also taken a policy decision on how much minimum water should be enough to flow in the Ganga basin, which Bharati has opposed saying it is against the common position that was arrived at within the government.
In a letter to environment minister Prakash Javadekar, Bharati had said the affidavit permitting the five dams and setting a policy benchmark for how much water should be allowed as minimum flow in the river and its tributaries should not be filed before the Supreme Court as it was against the decisions taken jointly in the Union government. The letter was sent on January 5 but the environment ministry went ahead and filed the affidavit on January 6.
Business Standard reviewed both the letter and the affidavit of the environment ministry, beside other documents.
Earlier, the environment ministry had informed the Supreme Court it would not permit any new dams to be built on tributaries of Ganga in the hill state without a comprehensive and cumulative impact assessment of the planned bumper-to-bumper dams in the hills. It had said so noting the dams in the hill state had contributed to the disaster of 2013 when the Kedarnath valley got flooded, killing hundreds and impacted thousands.
The five dams that have now got a conditional nod from the environment ministry through the U-turn in the affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court are 300 Mw Alaknanda project, 24.3-Mw Bhyunder Ganga project, 4-Mw Khirao Ganga project, 171-Mw Lata Tapovan project, and 195-Mw Kotlibhel 1A project. The government has recommended ‘considerable design modifications’ on the Alaknanda and Kotlibhel 1A projects.
The environment ministry did not respond to queries and reminders sent by Business Standard.
Bharati in her letter to Javadekar said, “I request you not to file the aforesaid affidavit and take prayer to the Hon’ble Court for extension of time so as to enable the aforesaid inter-ministerial committee to give its report, which can form the basis of considered policy decision of the government in the issue of six hydro-electric projects.”
She said the environment ministry affidavit was self-contradictory. At one place, it says, “Entire flow of the river in these three major streams and that of the river Ganga after Devprayag cannot be stopped at any location.” This, she said, was according to “the common understanding reached between us.” But, then, she points out that in another part, the ministry has told the court, “Having respect to the spirit of the 1916 agreement, free unfettered and uninterrupted flow of natural course of water up to the level of 1,000 cusecs in the river has to be maintained while designing any structure across these three main streams (Alaknanda, Bhagirathi and Mandakini tributaries), to ensure there are no dry stretches downstream of such structures and there is a continuous flow of natural stream.”
This submission was partly corrected in a supplementary affidavit filed later to reflect the 1916 agreement correctly. In the correction, the ministry has said a minimum flow of 1,000 cusecs shall be maintained, one of the things Bharati had taken objection to.
Bharati reiterated in her letter, “Our common understanding was that apart from aforesaid three major streams in which flow cannot be fettered under any condition, in case of other tributaries of Ganga, projects can be taken up only after ensuring free, unfettered and uninterrupted flow of minimum 1,000 cusecs, This is nowhere reflected in the draft affidavit.”
She added that the submissions in the affidavit were “being submitted as the policy decision of the government. However, the group of three ministers including you, me and hon’ble minister of state of power representing ministries having stake in the matter in our meeting held on 18-11-2015 decided to form inter-ministerial committee under chairmanship of secretary water resources to give report for policy decision of the government in the matter.”
She goes on to say, The chairman of the committee has sought extension of time in view of the complexity of matter and also for consideration of inclusion of representative from state of Uttarakhand in view of request of hon’ble chief minister.”
“I am surprised to note that there is no mention of this development in the draft affidavit though in previous hearing held on 24-11-2015 the extension of time was sought from hon’ble court precisely on this ground. Since the aforesaid committee is yet to give its report, I am unable to understand how the policy decision of the government as stated in the draft affidavit was arrived,” she concluded.
The environment ministry’s affidavit is based on an expert body report that it had earlier set up and the 1916 agreement. But here too, there is a big contradiction in the ministry’s affidavit even from the expert body report and the 1916 agreement. The ministry said 1,000 cusecs flow would be maintained in the three tributary stretches and Ganga. But the expert body noted that that the 1916 agreement requires 1,000 cusecs water to be supplied only at the ghats of Haridwar and not upstream in the entire river stretches. The expert body report states, “As per the document, maintain of 1,000 cusec of water has been recommended for Har ki Pauri (the main ghat) at Haridwar.” Business Standard reviewed the 1916 agreement to also confirm this independently.
The environment ministry affidavit remains quite about the continuous water flows required in the entire stretches of these tributaries and the rivers upstream of Haridwar – in technical jargon this is referred to as environmental flows and is considered essential to maintain the ecological systems that are dependent on the river waters.
This continuous environmental flow in the Ganga basin was to be decided by the inter-ministerial group that Bharti refers to in her letter. The policy decision to ensure the flow of water in Ganga basin has also not been cleared by the National Ganga River Basin Authority, which had previously taken such policy decisions ever-since Ganga was declared a national river. The authority has an apex policy-making council headed by the Prime Minister and all concerned ministries and states on board.
The path to clearance
The trigger for all this was the Uttarakhand tragedy in June 2013. Reacting to it, in August 2013 the Supreme Court put a ban on all new hydropower projects in Uttarakhand till the government decided if the existing ones had played a role in the 2013 disaster or not. The then UPA government set up an expert body committee under environmentalist Ravi Chopra with government and non-government officials on board. The committee concluded in April 2014 that the dams had played a critical role in the disaster, it recommended a ban on hydropower projects above 2000-2,500 m above sea levels and permitted only 1 of the 24 proposed dams with major modifications. The NDA government accepted the report and said as much in its affidavit to the apex court in December 2014.
But when six project developers intervened and asked for relief the court asked the government to come back on their views on the six. The government set up yet another committee specifically to look at these six. The new committee concluded that these would be dangerous for the fragile ecology of the hill state, especially after the changed geography post-disaster. The government first kept the report under wraps while the Attorney General orally informed the court that the six projects could get the go-ahead. After the report got published in the media it was finally submitted to the court. The apex court asked that the expert body panel to make a final recommendation on the 6 projects as a cluster. Instead of reverting back to the original Ravi Chopra expert body, the environment ministry set up yet another panel as the expert body, this time headed by B P Das, who had previously served as member for several years on the statutory environmental clearance committee for hydropower dams.
The panel was given specific terms of reference for the 6 projects, besides other tasks. It was told to finalise conditions under which the projects can be given a go-ahead. It was also told to consider environmental flow stipulations on the “approved principle of unfettered flow of minimum 1,000 cusecs in all seasons.” While it was told the larger cumulative impact assessment should be done in six months the report on the 6 projects should be finalised in just 3 months. The Das committee concluded in its 68 page report that five of the six projects could be cleared with conditions on their design. While doing so it noted that the 1916 pact that the government had put in its terms of reference to consider pertained only to maintaining waters at Haridwar.
When the expert body headed by Das submitted its report the environment ministry told the court that it needed to consult others as it was an inter-ministerial issue. It sought time from the courts to do so. This is when the inter-ministerial group was set up that Bharti refers to in her letter pointing out that the environment ministry has submitted the report without awaiting its results and taken drastic policy decisions.
