Dilemmas of Development

"This morning I came, I
saw, and
I was conquered”
- FD Roosvelt, While inaugurating the Hoover Dam

Tehri Dam dint really conquer the prejudiced 'me', when I went to visit it in 2007. We reached Tehri via Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dev Prayag. 

 Tehri Dam

 Tehri dam is the fourth tallest earth and rock filled dam in the world and the tallest in Asia at around 840m. It is situated at around 650m above mean sea level at the confluence of Bhilangna and Bhagirathi  river in beautiful tehri garhwal.

 Tehri Garhwal 

 Tehri Garhwal Landscape

The word 'Tehri' comes from the sanskrit word trihari, which means place which can cure three kinds of sins; sins of the mind, of words and of actions. There is a recorded history of habitation in Tehri Garhwal for over two thousand years. Tehri was the capital city of the princly state of Tehri Garhwal . According to 1991 census, it had a population of 268,885 people. A dam was concieved across Bhagirathi in the early seventies. In 1986 an Indo-Soviet agreement brought Soviet expertise and aid of approximately $416 million to the project. In 2001 the German export credit agency Hermes guaranteed loans to Voith Siemens Hydro to provide generating equipment for Tehri.Construction began in 1978, cofferdam was complete by 1996. The project was complete in 2003.

 All is not well in the waterfront. The reservoir has completely submerged the town of Tehri adding the prefix 'old' to it. 40 villages have also been submerged completely and 72 partially, 5200ha of agricultural land has been lost and over a million people have been displaced. The only reminder of the past, towers of Kings palace can be seen peeping from the water.  The number of people displaced by dams is estimated at between 40m and 80m, most of them in China and India.

 

Tehri Dam is situated in the highly active Central Himalayan Seismic Zone. It is designed to withstand earthquakes of up to 7.2 on the Richter scale although experts predict that earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 or more could strike this region. This is the only major hydro project across Bhagirathi, If the dam were to burst, several major towns downstream of the dam with a total population of over half a million people could be wiped out. The chief engineer of the project whom we interviewed said that Rishikesh could be under water in ten minutes after the event. The dam has been carefully designed keeping all these risks in mind. Tehri dam is an earth fill dam shaped like a hill. The river is S-shaped near the dam and a substantial portion of the water pressure will be borne not by the dam structure itself but by the hillsides.

Benefits of the project:

• The dam is expected to generate 2400MW of power and light Delhi, UP, Haryana.
• Provide 270 million gallons drinking water per day  to the metropolis of Delhi, Uttarakhand and UP states.
• Provide irrigatation to over 900000 ha land in Haryana and UP. 

Delhi is the capital city of India, UP and Haryana are densly populated agricultural states. All three are critical for India's growth. This summer Delhi reeled under severe heat which was made worse by power crunch. There were frequent power cuts. Power cuts at over 40 degree heat would make, even the most mildest of persons go violent. It was extremely frustating, I could not sleep the nights whenever there was power cuts. I spent the whole night cursing everyone right from the dog barking outside my house, my landlord to the chief minister. There were protests as well. All my activist tendencies melted in the heat. On the other the above mentioned states of North India suffered heavily because of failed monsoons. The government declared the event as decade's worst drought.



There was a popular anti dam struggle led by none other than Sundarlal Bahuguna.    In 1978 a Committee to Oppose the Tehri Dam or the Tehri Bandh Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti (TBVSS) was formed under Chandi Prasad Bhatt. TVBSS succeeded in pressuring authorities to review the project on several occasions. 

The project was abandoned in the mid 1980s after being sharply criticized on environmental grounds by a government appointed review committee.  In 1987 the project was again referred to a committee of the Ministry of Environment to assess its safety and environmental and social impacts. This committee unanimously ruled against the project but the Indian government overruled its findings and restarted the project. After a 74-day hunger strike in 1996, Sunderlal Bahuguna  forced the government to set up a review of the seismic, environmental and rehabilitation aspects of the project. The Hanumantha Rao Committee submitted its report and recommendations in 1997. The government has failed to implement most of the committee’s recommendations, especially those concerning rehabilitation. In 1992 environmentalists filed a case in the Supreme Court alleging that project authorities had not acquired the mandatory environmental clearance for the dam. The petition addresses environment, seismicity and rehabilitation issues. The court cited scientific uncertainity and permitted the completion of the dam. There is a dailogue in this Kannada film called Dweepa  which dealt with similar issues of dams and displacement; The protogonist asks a government officer ''Sir, Is it fair to drown some people to help many ?"  I don't really have the answer, Even I am benefitting from the Dam in countless direct and indirect ways. I think there is no clear demarcation of what is right and what is wrong here? It’s a very thin, blurred line which keeps shifting with time 

Ends does not really justify the means.I think nobody would oppose the power or water but people would oppose the mode in which they are produced.We really have quite a few practical alternatives. Instead of going to one large multi purpose centralized hydro project, it would have been better to go for many mini hydro projects. Decentralized solutions with respect to use of renewable energy and watershed planning and management are never paid attention to. Measures should be taken to reduce transmission losses in power. Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) the 36th President of the United States once said A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither because of its shortsightedness. The hard lessons of history are clear, written on the deserted sands and ruins of once proud civilizations.