Big power projects have harmed people Noted social activist from the Himalayan region and president of the Uttarakhand Lok Vahini Dr Shamsher Singh Bisht thinks that the state has failed as a power state as big hydroelectric projects installed here have caused more loss to the people and the nation than gain. Bisht said the entire policy of development after the creation of Uttarakhand as a new state in 2000 was flawed. The state was billed as a “power state” and the development policy had shown dreams that power projects would bring prosperity. “If benefits were worth Rs 1 billion, losses to the region crossed Rs 10 billion mark after the policy was adopted,” said Bisht. He said unless the state adopted a policy of building smaller hydropower projects of one megawatt and sold power by linking it to the grid, the real aim of making Uttarakhand a ‘power state’ could not be achieved nor the hill ecology could be saved. “A policy to harness power through smaller projects will bring stability and prosperity,” said Bisht. He was of the opinion that there was a need to change the entire concept of construction in the hill state and it should be in consonance with the nature of the Himalayas. He said after the creation of Uttarakhand the successive state governments failed to prevent people from settling on riverbanks while the old Himalayan wisdom was to make houses on river ridges and have agricultural fields on the slopes. “Earlier when continuous rains for a week used to generate water springs from hill slopes. But nowadays instead of springs rains lead to landslides and damage to hill slopes,” said Bisht. “These are indications of the weakening Himalayas which successive planners of the hill state have ignored,” he added. Bisht said after the China war in 1962 the pace of construction of roads increased manifold in the region. This caused a heavy damage to hill slopes as thousands of tonnes of dynamites were used in the construction of roads. “Every year landslides occur on the Dharchula to Tawaghat road as dynamite blasts have made hills hollow in these parts,” he said. Bhatt said even tourism, which is being publicised as the biggest bread earner of the hill people, had been excessive and beyond the sanctity of mountains. The successive state governments tried to develop tourism on the lines of that in Thailand. “The Thailand model of tourism in Uttarakhand has led to loss of more lives in the Kedarnath tragedy. Had the governments not promoted religious tourism with an aim to attract more tourists the casualty in the natural calamity would have been less as then only religious people would have visited the Char Dhams,” said Bisht. He added sensitivity towards the environment of the region had decreased after the creation of Uttarakhand. “The number of contractors and petty contractors supported by politicians has swelled after the creation of the state than was in Uttar Pradesh. Politicians and the contractors in order to make big money got several roads sanctioned under various state and central schemes. While the state government should have developed track routes in the hills, it instead used dynamites to make roads,” he said. Bisht said people living in the border area of the state were being compelled to migrate from their traditional homes as the state government had failed to provide them basic facilities. “People are bound to migrate from villages situated in remote places along the border if they do not get teachers in schools, doctors in hospitals and money for their cash crops. The policy of not providing basic facilities in remote villages has led to migration of 12 lakh people from 10 districts of the state to Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar districts in the last 12 years,” said Bisht. He added every act of the state should focus on the fragile ecology of the region. “If the government really wants to reconstruct the state for the coming generation and build a unique identity, it will have to give the top priority to ecology and allow only limited number of tourists based on the carrying capacity of the hills. In building a new Uttarakhand there should be no compromise with the ecological concerns as these form the basic tenets of the future identity of the state,” said Bisht. WHAT TO DO The state should adopt a policy of building smaller hydropower projects of one megawatt Need to change the entire concept of construction in the state Construction should be in consonance with the nature of the Himalayas Give top priority to ecological concerns Need to develop track routes instead of using dynamites to build roads tribuneindia/2013/20130722/dun.htm#3
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 17:04:02 +0000
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