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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Uttarakhand alert for parched city-Subodh Varma

Uttarakhand alert for parched city-Subodh Varma

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published Published on Jun 18, 2012   modified Modified on Jun 18, 2012
-The Times of India
 
If you don't act now, Delhi will be starved of electricity and water in the coming years - this was the dire warning given by a group of village women, who have come to Delhi from remote areas of Uttarakhand. Their mission is to shake up the government and get it to restart work on several hydel projects in the state.

There is indeed a connection with the water woes of Delhi. The long-term plan for supplying water to the parched capital includes getting it from two hydel projects located in Uttarakhand - Lakhwar Vyasi (near Mussoorie on river Yamuna) and Kishau (near Dehradun on river Tons). Both are under a cloud.

But the mountain women had a sadder tale to tell - a tale that again highlights the balance between 'development' and environmental conservation.

"After my son got married, his bride refused to stay in our village because there is no electricity. They have left me alone with my one cow," wails Leelavati from Bitri village in Uttarkashi district. She wants to meet Sonia Gandhi in the hope that she will listen to her demand.

That's one part of the argument - electricity for the people. Uttarakhand, once touted as Urja Pradesh ("Energy State") now spends Rs 750 crore every year buying power, says Avdhash Kaushal of the Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra, a Dehradun-based NGO that has arranged these women's visit to Delhi. Per capita consumption of electricity in Uttarakhand is just 655 kWh, even lower than Chhattisgarh. Over 1220 villages remain unelectrified in the state.

Suratama, also from a village in Uttarkashi says that they have to walk 2 kms to a village in Himachal Pradesh to recharge their mobile phones, and that too for exorbitant amounts ranging between Rs.100 to 200.

The other aspect of the problem is employment. Rameshwari from Chamoli district is dramatic in highlighting this. She threatens self-immolation if work on the Vishnugad project is not started immediately. "Half the village has been relocated and given plots across the Alakhnanda. They have been given compensation and they have taken loans to build houses which are yet incomplete. Everybody was working in the project. Now, work is stopped and we are sinking into poverty," she says.

Avdhash Kaushal was severely critical of the "sadhu-sant lobby" for forcing stoppage of work in the state's hydel projects. "These sadhus have ashrams on the banks of Ganga and other rivers with 400 AC rooms. Their sewer lines directly fall into the rivers. It is they who are responsible for destroying the holy rivers, not hydel projects," claims an emotional Kaushal.

After the Uttarakhand High Court ordered that work on Loharinag Pala project, 100 kms upstream of Tehri dam on the Bhagirathi river, be continued, the whole matter of hydel projects was referred to National Ganga River Basin Authority. But meanwhile a fast unto death by former IIT professor G.D.Agarwal and intervention by Magsaysay Award winner Rajendra Singh led to it being scrapped. The Ganga Authority has not taken any decision in this apart from setting up committees.

Environmental activists in general have been lobbying for end to indiscriminate building of hydel projects in hill states like Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh. They claim that such projects destroy the fragile ecosystems by interfering with rivers.

The Times of India, 16 June, 2012, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-16/delhi/32268795_1_hydel-projects-bhagirathi-river-vishnugad-project


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