Natural highways

Mukhtar Islam and his crew of 21 have just completed a historic journey from Kolkata to Allahabad in 45 days. They were steering two tugboats, each pulling a barge carrying turbines. In 50 years, no big ship has sailed up the Ganga. By road it would have taken the crew two days to reach Allahabad and by train, less than 36 hours. The turbines, weighing 0.3 million tonnes, could not be transported by road or train because of their size.

Reservoirs losing capacity

HEAVY rainfall leading to flash floods in Himalayan rivers in July-end devastated three states—Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. It claimed 34 human lives and damaged property extensively. It also brought into focus the precarious condition of more than a dozen dams in the region.

‘Scrap 24 dams, save Ganga’

A REPORT commissioned by the Union environment and forests ministry warns the Centre against going ahead with 24 hydropower projects planned on the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river systems in Uttarakhand. The projects would destroy 22 per cent of the state’s forestland and affect the unique Himalayan ecology along one-third of lengths of the two main tributaries of the Ganga, states the report prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun.

Cleared at cost of biodiversity

THE UNION environment ministry has given in-principle clearance to a proposed hydro-project on the Alaknanda river, a tributary of the Ganga, in Uttarakhand. The 300 MW project had been rejected twice by the statutory body which recommends forest clearances, the forest advisory committee (FAC). FAC says the project lies in the buffer zone of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR), a home to many endangered species.

Myth of power

  Hydroelectric projects in Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river basins  

Prayers for a little

How much water should flow in Indian rivers? Hydrologists have been discussing minimum river flows for over four decades now. The churning has resulted in the concept of environmental flow, or e-flow. This implies strategically releasing water downstream of dams and reservoirs to protect the services a river provides.

Loharinag Pala project axed

THE three-member Group of Ministers (GoM), reviewing the construction of dams on the Ganga, have scrapped the Loharinag Pala hydroelectric project in Uttarakhand.

Protests resume at Loharinag Pala

AN INDEFINITE fast and protests are back at Loharinag Pala dam site on the Bhagirathi river, a key tributary of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, as the government decided to revive a 600 MW hydroelectric project on the recommendations of a Group of Ministers (GoM).

No judge to hear

MoEF penalized for not appointing appellate authority It is the forum for redressing grievances of people affected by environmental clearances, given by the government, to dams, infrastructure projects, mines and industrial activities. But a visit to the office of the National Environment Appellate Authority (neaa) at Bhikaji Cama Place, Delhi, would make one think one got the address wrong.

Shut and opened

Loharinag Pala power project resumes after it was suspended