The big picture

The big picture

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