The Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project continue to remain unaddressed even as the project is scheduled for commissioning within this month. (AT Photo)
If the 2,000 MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project (SLHEP), conceived by the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited (NHPC), has perhaps earned the dubious distinction of taking the longest time for completion among similar projects in the nation, it is purely because it has raised serious safety concerns among experts as well as the common masses of the Brahmaputra Valley. Having been first mulled over quite a few decades earlier, the project was finally started in 2005 and was due to be completed in 2010.
That it is yet to be completed bears testimony to the immense resistance it had faced since the very beginning. The concerns of the people of the Valley are genuine and stem from a variety of reasons. First, the Subansiri is a powerful Himalayan river descending from great heights and quite capable of sweeping away any human-made structures erected to stem its flow and utilise its latent energy. The downstream population, therefore, fears that a breach of a dam blocking its flow might sweep away a vast chunk of the Valley.
The people of Assam still remember the havoc wrought during the Great Earthquake of 1950, when the bursting of a dam transiently created by falling boulders changed the entire hydrological profile of the state. That the project had encountered many terrain-related mishaps so far, especially during the monsoons, has reinforced this concern.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, have objected to the adverse ecological impact the dam will have when finally in operation, pointing out that its reservoir will submerge a 47 km length of the Subansiri River and occupy 37.5-40 sq km, which includes Himalayan subtropical forests, a wildlife sanctuary, an elephant corridor, and many agricultural fields. Some fear that the dam, during non-monsoon months, will cause the river to dry up, wreaking ecological degradation while endangering the habitat of aquatic life like the freshwater dolphin.
The upshot is that the project will remain a perpetual threat to the downstream population in the Brahmaputra, who, paradoxically, will not gain much from it! It may be noted that the state's share of free energy from this 2000 MW project is laughably meagre when compared with the benefits accruing to other recipients, though it can "buy" as much energy as it wants! This precisely is why the people of Assam will not raise three cheers at the latest news that NHPC plans to start the process of commissioning 3 units (250 MW each) of the LHEPS in June, after approval from the National Dam Safety Authority.
One can only keep one's fingers crossed that the fears earlier expressed by the AASU, KMSS, TMPK and AJYCP of the negative impact this mega-dam might inflict on the downstream population are never realised and its management addresses transparently any future concerns that may arise!