Rethinking 'Dam'ocracy in the hills

Last week, the Supreme Court directed the environment ministry not to clear hydro power projects in Uttarakhand, expressing concern about their proliferation and impact on the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda. "The cumulative impact of those project components like dams, tunnels, blasting, powerhouse, muck disposal, mining, deforestation etc on ecosystem, is yet to be scientifically examined," the court said. A recent chat with Bhagwan Singh, ex-Pradhan of Agunda village in Uttarkashi, helped me understand that other than these, large dams had myriad other smaller impacts on local villagers. Singh and other villagers have been opposing the building of the Gunsola hydro power project on Balganga, upstream from their village.
 

"The government says that hydro power will bring prosperity to the state," he said. "What we know is that if this project in Gunsola takes off, our river downstream will run dry…" This would, first of all, signal an end to agriculture since the villagers are dependent on channels from the river for irrigation. Second, the villagers depend upon the river for clean drinking water. They also use river banks for many ritual purposes, especially cremations. Third, it would signal an end to the traditional village practice of using watermills to grind food grain.

Then, there's the environmental impact. "When we had floods in 2002 in which eight of our villagers lost their lives, the geological report mentioned Agunda and its neighbouring areas of Budha Kedarnath and Jhala lay in a landslide-prone zone. Our greatest fear is that if this dam gets made, the next landslide will cause our villages to flood," he said. Even before the dam is made, its very construction has repercussions on the people who live nearby, he said. "Every stick of dynamite makes these hills shiver," said Singh, "and us too." The villagers of Agunda and Budha Kedarnath have already seen how much a dam can inconvenience their daily lives. "When the Tehri dam was built amidst so many protests, we found that it led to so many landslides in our region that we practically have no roads left. Access to our village has become a nightmare!" he said.

Lastly, Singh spoke of the two micro hydro projects operating successfully for the last several years in Agunda and Budha Kedarnath. They were "run-of-river" systems in which the water passing through the generator was returned to the stream with relatively little impact on the surrounding ecology. A larger dam upstream could threaten the working of these community-owned projects. The villagers didn't want any development that could threaten these projects since they felt a sense of ownership and pride in them. "The Agunda project uses the village's water resources to provide us with uninterrupted power. It has made us self-sufficient, which is a big thing for people like us. Further, we are trying to see how to use this power to create some small industries in the village itself," he said. The Agunda villagers have employed two village boys to look after the project, and many have installed televisions, DVD players, mixer-grinders and other electrical appliances for the first time in their lives.

The micro hydro power project in Agunda uses a pre-existing irrigation channel and produces only 25 kilowatts of electricity. Clearly, while mega-dams produce several hundred times more power, their actual benefits to local villagers aren't as immediate as those from a tiny generator on a local culvert. "I'd like to see every village in Uttaranchal that's near a river, to have a micro hydro project like ours," said Singh. Singh's hopes may be ambitious, but the Uttarakhand government would do well to keep 'dam'ocracy in mind when it resumes work on its hydro power projects.