Truth is more Slppery

Once the site of a famous victory of the Gallo tribe over the British, Gerukhamukh village today is the address of the biggest dam ever conceived in India. On the banks of river Sipai in Arunachal Pradesh's (ap ) West Siang district, the village is host to the Subansiri Lower Multipurpose Hydroelectric project (slp). slp once promised 2,000 megawatts (mw) of electricity and numerous other bounties to the state. Today, it stands for everything that can go wrong with a hydroelectric project in the northeast.

March 22, 2005: 200 people from 14 villages in Dolok Bango area of West Siang gathered in the state capital, Itanagar, raising slogans against the slp. But the protestors were not against the dam per se. The cause for their remonstrance was actually the stricture against the dam that the Supreme Court (sc) had passed about a year ago, on April 19, 2004. sc had ordered that a sanctuary should come up comprising the reserve forest that fell in the catchment area of the river above the dam. It should come up, the sc ordered, to compensate for forests slp would submerge. But once created, people here believe, the reserve would displace 5,000 tribals, living in 14 villages of the Dolok Bango area, from their traditional lands and jhum (shifting cultivation) forests.

The irony here is that, by itself, slp will displace only 2 villages, comprising just 24 families. But such twists of planning were not what the protesting villagers had in mind. They only knew that the project had once promised them jobs. Now, it threatened their lives. Lamented Tare Taye of Mimma, one of the villages the people believe could fall within the proposed sanctuary, "I am almost 70, but am here in Itanagar to request the government to come to our rescue." He, like other protestors, had no clue that the ap government and the slp authorities had other 'far more important matters' to worry about.

Important matters
On January 22, 2005, Yogendra Prasad, the chairperson cum managing director of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (nhpc, the agency in charge of slp) air-dashed to Itanagar to meet ap chief minister (cm), Gegong Apang. The pow-wow, reported local dailies, was cordial. "The cm lauded the efforts of the nhpc", noted one.

What the papers missed reporting was that nhpc' s head was actually in town on a rescue mission: the state government was threatening to pull the plug on the Rs 7,468.91 crore project. Its grouse: while giving the go-ahead to slp on April 19, 2004 -- with conditions such as the sanctuary -- the sc had simultaneously banned all future hydroelectric projects on the Subansiri. The state government felt betrayed. The nhpc had promised at least two more mega-projects on the river -- the 2,000 mw Subansiri Upper Project and the 1,600 mw Subansiri Middle Project -- together worth more than Rs 20,500 crore. Now, the state government believed nhpc had submitted meekly to the court, indeed colluded with interested parties. "If slp means we will have to forego the other projects, we'd rather rethink this one as well," T Bagra, ap's power secretary told Down To Earth the evening before the meeting.

After the confabulation, nhpc and the ap government came out peace pipe in hand: interests dictated the sc ban be contested. Yet, neither has decided who is best positioned to take on the sc.

Hectic negotiations continue.

The slp was actually conceived way back in 1983 when the Brahmaputra Board -- created in 1980 to oversee hydroelectric projects in the Brahmaputra and Barak basins -- prepared a detailed project report on it. Then the project went into a limbo: the Union government revived it only in 2000. In its "Agenda for the socio-economic development of the northeast", the Centre decided to boost hydroelectricity projects in the region, and so apportioned them to nhpc and the North-Eastern Electric Power C orporation. slp went to nhpc . More than 150 dams were envisaged for the eight northeast states; ap was assessed as having the most hydroelectric 'potential'. The prime minister's office pushed hard for slp : "action has been initiated to ensure that the slp commences in 2001". At that time the project was to cost only Rs 3,000 crore and generate 660 mw electricity.

The dam was envisaged as a 116-metre concrete structure in the lower Subansiri basin, 2.5 km upstream of village Gerukhamukh. The river here winds down into Arunachal from neighbouring Assam; its left bank straddles ap while the right one is in Assam (see map: It promised much). The dam will submerge 3,436 hectares (ha) of land upstream when its reservoirs are full. Most threatened areas lie in Lower Subansiri district, ap; a small portion also falls in Assam's Dhemaji and North Lakhimpur districts.

It's a prestigious project
slp is the first major project for nhpc in this region. For underdeveloped ap, it's the only icon of industrialisation: a dream successive governments of this state have sold to their people as a panacea for rampant unemployment.

This dream is in shambles after the sc order of April 19, 2004. The order was based on the recommendations of the five-member C entral Empowered Committee (cec) -- a body that advises the sc on forest-related cases. But equally devastating has been another order, passed by the Union ministry of environment and forests (moef). This order, passed on April 23, 2004 in the wake of an sc directive under cec's advice, created the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (campa). The two orders have collectively created confusion and turmoil, where once none existed.

This is what the slp is now saddled with: a ban on projects upstream, the creation of a wildlife sanctuary and compensation obligations. It has deposited Rs 373.65 crore with the sc under the campa -related Compensatory Afforestation Fund (see box: The campa process). The compensation imperative has hit nhpc hard. Even before this injunction, it had already deposited Rs 79 crore with the governments of Assam and ap for compensatory afforestation. ap got about Rs 70 crore for project-related diversion of 3,168 ha of forests, while Assam was given about Rs 9 crore for 571.3 ha. nhpc also had to pay Rs 4.26 crore as penalty for diverting 245 ha of forest land without prior permission in Assam.

Now it has also -- as per the campa order -- paid net present value (npv) of the forests slp will submerge. moef had decreed, in a letter they sent to nhpc, that this npv amounted to Rs 373.65 crore (this figure is calculated by multiplying the area to be diverted with a pre-determined rate -- Rs 5.80 lakh to Rs 9.2 lakh per hectare, depending on the "quality and density of forest land diverted"). nhpc has to also cough up an additional Rs 8.71 crore for the catchment area treatment plan as per slp's Environmental Impact Assessment (eia) report -- written way before the project officially began. The plan includes afforestation in the catchment, nursery development, and building check dams. These works will be carried out by the state forest department (fd), suggests the eia report. nhpc honchos admit, off-record, that all this has left them stupefied.

nhpc went to sc in June 2004, praying that the apex court consider that it had already paid all its dues as per the state government's compensatory afforestation plans. It also planned to give money for the catchment treatment plan. nhpc's petition then made a hyperbolic claim: there had been "no instance so far where the construction of a dam on the whole has an adverse impact on depletion of forestland". The apex court was not convinced; so, it ordered nhpc to deposit Rs 373.65 crore. nhpc has complied and got moef' s clearance.

But nhpc officials believe the moef's order has set a precedent for both Centre and states -- where river valley projects come up -- to exact their pound of flesh. "We have given the money asked of us by the court and the states. But where is the afforestation plan?" berates one. His anger is not without reason. There is no news of campa funds in Delhi, and the fd does not have any plan to carry out compensatory afforestation from the money they got. The catchment treatment plan does exist on paper. But it's too early for any action on ground!

Legal disorder
slp's entanglement with Delhi began in November 2000 when the moef granted nhpc permission to conduct feasibility studies and preliminary surveys. But this was revoked once the corporation submitted its eia report and environmental management plan (a prerequisite for final clearance); the corporation had concluded its surveys by then. The ministry revoked the permission because it claimed nhpc had not informed it that slp would submerge 42 ha of the Tale Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Lower Subansiri district -- a 33,700 ha reserve carved out of the traditional hunting grounds of Apatani tribals in 1994.

Observers believe this sudden revocation of permission was necessitated by an sc order banning the diversion of protected areas (pas) for non-forestry purposes without its permission. In initially giving permission, the ministry had ignored the order. It then stalled the project fearing -- observers believe -- contempt of court. "I guess we will have to leave out some areas from the pa to protect local rights," says P Ringu, deputy conservator of forests, ap in charge of the pa demarcation. But says Kipa Raja, an Itanagar-based researcher, "This is unchartered territory, the state has no clue of the chaos it's leading people into."

nhpc officials are only perturbed that the sanctuary and the consequent displacement will mean more financial obligations. But as Yumbi Taba of Drupai village says, "No compensation is big enough. How dare anyone evict us from the land where my forefathers are buried and where my children are growing up?" Organisations working in the region believe 14 villages will definitely be displaced. "This is really very irrational. The sanctuary created as compensation is going to hit the people worse than the dam," says an angry Bamang Anthony, head of the Arunachal Citizens' Rights, an Itanagar-based ngo.

The 24 families displaced by the dam are yet to be rehabilitated; 7 others whose rights were bought out are yet to get money, although the state has already squeezed Rs 10 crore out of nhpc on this count. And now, the future of 5,000 people displaced by the sanctuary is shrouded in uncertainty.

Violations galore
Meanwhile, nhpc has been up to its own antics. It wants to fight the 2004 orders of both sc and moef, but recognises this is unsound strategy. Therefore nhpc has begun goading the state government, also trying out gimmicks such as circumventing the sc directive banning future hydroelectric projects on the Subansiri by simply renaming some! So, it has suggested renaming the Subansiri Middle Project as the Kamla project -- since it falls on the Subansiri's Kamala tributary.

As a more serious recourse, nhpc has suggested the state file a petition claiming that it is virtually impossible to create a sanctuary. So, the court should re-examine its order. The state is yet to bite the bullet.

There have been other violations. The sc had also demanded that nhpc ensure firewood for its staff without harming surrounding forests. But wood is also required for constructing houses and offices at the site. And since transporting it from other areas is virtually impossible, local forests come in handy. That there is no one to monitor the sc orders aids those flouting them.

Moreover, moef had ordered the ap government and nhpc to constitute a committee to ensure slp did not have any detrimental impacts beyond those permitted. The committee has been constituted; a forest official has been randomly asked to function as a soil conservation expert; another as an expert on orchids! It's mandatory for the committee to meet once every year. But it hasn't. "A meeting scheduled for last December was postponed," says Chuku Loma, ap's deputy chief wildlife warden. "We had suggested a field office to monitor slp. This should have come up before work on the project began. Thousands of labourers are trooping in now and we are totally clueless. We have never been consulted," he charges.

In fact, the project has gone on unabated despite all orders to the contrary. At least three nhpc engineers involved with the slp confirmed that to Down To Earth. "Things here are different from what people in Delhi (moef officials) think. We have been here since 2000. A project has its own demands, you cannot just stop and start it at will," says a junior engineer in charge of supervising small contractors.

All embargoes remain on paper; the dam comes up unfettered.

The only ones who monitor slp carefully are the new breed of contractors slp has spawned. They are young, influential and know they can make money only as long as the project continues.

Most of the contracts are to build housing colonies or offices in the slp complex. Some of them are worth a few crores -- but most run into tens of lakhs. But they mean dirty business, nevertheless. Regional papers regularly mention fights at the corporation office as local people exchange blows over lucrative contracts. "Once we had to decamp with the tender box because the corporation said we were too small to get the large contracts and wanted outsiders to bid for them," says a young contractor who works with the nhpc. "The project has nothing else to offer but these contracts. I have to milk it while I can," says another contractor, a Hill Miri tribal whose own village is affected by the project.

And what about the jobs slp promised? "This is an important phase of the project and people in ap are not capable of performing these highly technical functions," says J H Robertson, general manager, nhpc at Ziro, ap . Robertson's condescension doesn't quite match the hyperbole the nhpc used earlier to convince people of slp's benefits.

Worse still, even the petty manual jobs nhpc promised haven't materialised. The corporation had promised 100 per cent reservation for the people of ap as grade c and d category employees (after adjusting existing corporation staff). nhpc has no records of the number of local people employed by the slp, but it is common knowledge in the area that contractors end up sub-letting their contracts to outsiders as well as getting labour from Bihar or Nepal. Says the Hill Miri contractor, "I feel sorry for my people. I can only offer them sub-contracts to either get sand or gravel from the river close by or cut timber from close-by reserved forests."

The thin line
This is where the politics gets murky and complicated. Most contractors belong to the area where the dam is coming up and are from a select few tribes. "The dam is coming up in our area, why should contracts go to outsiders?" asks one Ziro-based contractor. Even tribal people from other parts of the state have been kept out of the contracts.

These contractors are influential members of close-knit tribal communities and cannot afford to leave their people in the lurch. Therefore, while they make money for themselves they want some to percolate to their community. Handing down sub-contracts gives them immense political clout in a state where unemployment is rampant. This can again be used to leverage work from the nhpc or the government.

"Let's be very clear, we want the dam but we want our people to benefit from it. We have had many pontificating against it -- lots of such people have come from central India. We are not going to let them into Arunachal," warns a political leader who has also been crucial in securing resettlement and rehabilitation rights of people affected by the slp.

Kinship based networks have made it tough for the anti-dam lobby to work in the state. In ap, a debate -- to have a big dam or not -- does not exist.

One question does pop up in every conversation, though: how to have a big dam?

Presently, the state where a project comes up gets 12 per cent of the power generated (after discounting auxillary consumption but not including transmission losses) free and it can sell this off to generate revenue. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows the possibilities. The total potential of the region is 31,857 mw. Going by the same ratios as nhpc uses to calculate revenue for ap out of slp, the northeastern states could earn about Rs 6,657 crore to Rs 7,788 crore annually if able to sell all the power they get for free. Compare this with the accrual from the Union government's (all departments) special non-lapsable central pool of resources for the northeast. In 2001-2002 it was Rs 5,158.20 crore -- a good Rs 1,000 crore less than what the power projects promise.

Hydroelectric potential in the northeast should not be compared with the rest of the country. Bhutan is more apt. The neighbouring country's economy saw gdp growth of 6.8 per cent in 2003-2004. In the same period, its power sector grew by 9.5 per cent, the share of this sector in gdp increasing to 12.3 per cent, according to a February 2005 report of the National Statistical Bureau, Thimphu, Bhutan. The growth was largely spurred by the sale of electricity to India, with the Chhukha Hydro Power Corporation Limited contributing more than 80 per cent to the export.

Can the northeast states achieve similar growth? More importantly, is it really possible to make people here share the bounty that may come the states' way once the dams are up and running? Not if they come up the way slp is progressing.

(see map: Will there be more mess?).

Why not the SLP way
slp teaches at least two lessons. One, merely seeking monetary compensation is no solution to the loss of forests in the biodiversity-rich northeast. The former becomes a lame excuse to let any project bypass scrutiny, unless there is a management plan to use such a fund and regulation to ensure afforestation. Whether the compensation gets collected at Itangar or Delhi makes no difference unless the channels by which it is used are transparent and the road map clear. slp shows that is not the situation yet. In fact several critics of slp have pointed out how shabby the process of identifying the biodiveristy loss in submergance and the downstream ecological repurcussions has been during the eia.

To compound the situation, slp has set the precedent of creating protected areas as compensation for loss of forests. In the northeast where most land (by legal and traditional rights or sheer practice) is community-owned, such a precedence, if followed, will only lead to massive land alienation in the region.

First the people will give way for the dams and then more will give away to 'compensate' for the dams. Forest and water are the only resources that the people have in the region. The only way dams can bring prosperity to the people (not the state) is if they bring value to these resources for them and not by alienating them from these resources.

How?
The moot question is: where does the money that the state earns out of generating this power go? Does it get lost in the state coffers, paying salaries of government employees or does it reach the people who have fostered the forests in the region?

slp shows right now there is no mechanism to take the money to people. The state government and its departments have milked slp as a golden goose. For instance, when they found moef ordered nhpc to settle all claims of rights and privileges of affected people, it milked a tidy sum of Rs 10 crore from the corporation. The people are yet to get a paisa. Similarly, the state fd is squeezing nhpc to regain past glory. In all, nhpc has paid about Rs 475.62 crore to different agencies for environmental or social concerns.

They will also have to bear the costs of the sanctuary for the next decade. And despite this, the state has yet to finalise a memorandum of understanding -- a almost obligatory requirement -- for that would clarify the state's reach.

"Arunachal Pradesh state government may get the money but we must ensure it goes to the Arunachal Pradesh residents," says Kipa Raja, in reference to the slp . If the region's people can earn from the energy 'their' forests release then surely hydroelectric projects can bring in changes for the better.

Logistical questions
But large dams come with roads, railroads, power-grids. What will the map of the northeast look like, with these dams, the spider-web-like power grid, the thousands of kilometres of road network (besides the one the Border Road Organisation is already building!), submerged lands under the vast reservoirs, railroads cutting through surviving lands and people? What will be the collective social and ecological consequences of these hydroelectric projects? "We have never examined that perspective. We do not have access to all these details," says Bagra, ap' s power secretary.

There are more practical questions. How, for one, is the promised power to be delivered? The existing power grid cannot handle the 'surge' from the projects. The estimated cost of laying the grid for slp alone comes to Rs 6,000 crore. The costs will be about Rs 600 crore for the Tipaimukh Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project in Manipur and Rs 1,200 crore for the Kameng Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project in ap, all under way. Moreover, neither bulk power purchase agreements between the grid's owner and the producing states or the power purchase agreements between the producer and consumer states have been signed as yet. Transmission lines are sure to eat up a lot of forest patches as well as jhum lands.

Think hills
Non-governmental organisations are busy protesting against displacement and ecological destruction. The government and project proponents are busy complaining against the compensation they have to pay. The Union government and courts are too busy collecting the compensation. None of them have stopped to ask: if a big dam does come up, what is the right way to build it? How does one develop the capacity of the state governments and the people in the region to handle such large overlapping and inter-state issues?

These states have only recently walked into mainstream economy. At times, they do not even have the right questions to pose, forget seeking the right answer. "My people don't even know what to read in an eia," says Tado Karlo, professor of the physics department in North-eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology, Nirjuli, ap.

The dams will certainly make state coffers jingle. But they can also bring prosperity to people in the northeast. That will take more than just a silly moef clearance, or a court order for compensation, to bring prosperity to the people of the region. Is civil society in the rest of India earnest enough to leave its pre-conceptions aside and help the northeast ask the most pertinent questions, and so find the right answers?

With inputs by Tongam Rina from Itanagar and Mansi Sharma from Delhi