Environment Ministry - Must Act and revamp its policy now
Dr VK Bahuguna
February 21, 2021, 08:45:42
The untimely flash flood in the
Rishiganga river a tributary of Alaknanda in the 'Raini' village in Chamoli
districts of Uttarakhand on 7th morning had brought untold misery to
the families who lost their near and dears in this tragedy. Normally such
incidents of flash floods occur during Monsoon seasons only. This is for the
first time that such magnitude's natural disaster of breaking down of Himalayan
glacier has taken place in the winter months. The Uttarakhand and the Central
government's National Disaster Management Apparatus had quickly swung into
action and controlled the damage to life and property in other areas. So far
till 13th February more than 46 bodies of people have been recovered
and around 150 are missing and 36 workers trapped in the tunnels at Tapovan's
NTPC 520 Mega watt Hydro project. The rescue team after it failed to reach the
trapped people in tunnel for last 6 to 7 days as more and more sludge is coming
out even after clearing the muck over
100 meters in the sludge choked tunnel . After failing to do this the rescue
team decided to drill a hole and find the survivors. Five bodies were recovered from the intake
tunnel so far. It is feared that no survivors will be there. In the meanwhile, the
satellite images are confirming that yet another lake has formed which is
growing in size in the Rishiganga area and signalling yet another flash flood
in near future.
Uttarakhand situated in western Himalayas
which is geologically of recent origin and is an unstable mountain zone due to
gradual tectonic shift in the Himalayan plate to further north every year. This
makes it vulnerable to earthquakes and underneath geological changes which
suddenly releases the energy and causes natural upheavals of gigantic
proportion disturbing the ecological foundation of the region and damaging the
human life beyond repairs. The glaciers are ice sheets which are accumulation
of snow and keep growing due to more and more snow. It is natural for the
glaciers to break due to underneath geological changes and melting down of
glaciers due to climatic factors. However, this natural factor becomes a
manmade disaster due to the activities of the people who live in this area and
the lopsided government policy and planning which ignores the prudence of
science and common sense for the short term benefits. This happens due to the 'ostrich
mentality' in the decision making when the people avoid the negative
information which results in potentially destructive decisions.
The poor decision making is happening not only
in Uttarakhand but all over India for past many years. The Planning of roads
and buildings in vulnerable slopes by the local people and the government
without assessments of pros and cons and construction of dams and small hydro
electric projects all over along the rivers in Uttarakhand is the root cause of
this misery we face time and again. The Tapovan 520 Megawatt and Rishiganga 13
Megawatt projects have been completely washed away in this flood killing
several poor workers and local residents. It is surprising that more than 50
hydroelectric projects are either sanctioned or are running in Uttarakhand and
these were sanctioned inspite of the expert opinion against them and even today
the cases are pending in Supreme Court. Most of these small projects were
sanctioned in the name of 'run of the river system' but if we cover the major
stretch of the river with these projects the potential threat is even higher
than the big dams. So the greed to generate power by hook or crook like make
roads and buildings are constructed even if the drainages are choked what else
we can expect except disasters and agonies to people and huge loss of property.
We know had these two dams were not under
progress even if the glaciers had broken due to natural reasons the loss of
life could have been avoided. It is also argued that the geological movements
of the glaciers might have been triggered slowly by the blasting of hills. For
such recurrent tragedies the governance structures are to be blamed. The
Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry has over for the past several
years had adopted an expediency dominated approach and has to share the blame
for approving several hydro electric projects and other developmental projects
without proper scrutiny and even completely ignoring the conditions of the
approvals. Be it mining or any other developmental projects the compliance of
conditions is never monitored in a systematic manner. In Uttarakhand in most of
these hydro projects the disposal of muck and sludge is totally unscientific
and is one of the causes of this damage. The Uttarakhand government had to
listen to the experts who had been advising it to change its development focus.
It must act on priority to avoid further disasters in these projects
A
time has come when the political leadership of all hues must decide how we want
our country to progress now and this should start with Environment Ministry.
The Ministry does not need to do anything except to balance out the needs of
development with its rule book by using robust common sense. There is no
denying the fact that we need electricity, coal as well as iron for our
industrial growth and there is ample scope is achieve if we use our expertise
and resources carefully. The management of our ecology must be given equal
importance if not precedence in the decision making process over expediency
dominated approach in resources management. It is quite clear to the people
that though we have several thousand crore budgets this year for infrastructure
but over the years environment budget is in a net minus and is a pittance
considering the magnitude of integration needed in holistic management of
natural resources and to tackle climate change in the varied situations in the
country. It is worth remembering an old saying "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot
change their minds cannot change anything." Mandarins in the Central and State
governments must adhere to this advice. We have been blaming the bureaucracy
for several ills but in the field of Environment our political masters must
accept the responsibility for the poor governance.
(Tripurainfo)