The Union government’s affidavit before the Supreme Court on hydropower projects in Uttarakhand’s upper Ganga basin is significant for more reasons than one. It is a clear acknowledgement that ecological vulnerability can no longer be a secondary consideration during infrastructure planning in the fragile Himalayan region. While drawing the line at seven power projects that are fully commissioned or in advanced stages of construction, the joint affidavit from the jal shakti, environment and power ministries made it clear that no new project would be green-lighted in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins.
The court case followed the catastrophic Kedarnath floods of 2013. Of the 28 projects that came under the scanner, only seven were approved. For the rest, the top court constituted a high-power committee to review the recommendations of an expert body. The committee endorsed five projects out of the 21, but the jal shakti ministry felt these too would profoundly affect the river system that feeds the Ganga. Eventually, only the seven projects approved earlier were recommended as the three ministries felt critical geological and disaster-related parameters had been ignored by the expert panel and the review committee.
The key question is whether such a consideration can become a broader principle for the entire Himalayan region. There is compelling evidence to say it should. The affidavit invokes the sui generis character of the Upper Ganga basin for its cautious view and points to 10 major natural disasters including cloudbursts, quakes, landslides and flashfloods that have occurred in the region over the past two-and-a-half decades. This holds true for the entire arc of the geologically-young and tectonically-unstable Himalayas. The nature of disasters Uttarakhand has witnessed has also been experienced in Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Assam. The Sikkim flash floods in 2023 and Tapovan Vishnugad glacier burst in 2021 exposed the vulnerability of hydropower infrastructure in the region. In many cases, dam construction itself aggravated geological instability and river fragmentation, exposing the lower riparian states to existential crises of life and livelihood. The Brahmaputra master plan to generate 65 gigawatts of hydropower must also be viewed in this context. We must remember that not all renewable power projects are green. Given this, a new national framework must be chalked out with the Uttarakhand affidavit as a starting point.
