NEW DELHI:
A Parliamentary committee recently expressed serious concern over the problem of flooding in Assam on account of hydropower projects located in Arunachal Pradesh.
The National Hydropower Corporation (NHPC) is all set to start commissioning of the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri hydro power project located along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border by August next year, even though it has been opposed by several organisations and environmental activists.
The Parliamentary committee on water resources in its 17th report said that any extra water released from dams uphill lead to enormous inundation of Brahmaputra valley.
“Since these projects are only meant for power generation, they don’t have infrastructure for water storage or flood management. Further, due to apparent lack of coordination among the Ministry of Power and Ministry of Jal Shakti, power projects in Arunachal Pradesh have been constructed without any plan to combat flooding in the neighbouring flood-prone state of Assam,” the committee chaired by Dr Sanjay Jaiswal said in its report submitted in the Parliament recently.
The Committee urged the Ministry of Jal Shakti to take up this matter with the Ministry of Power and government of Arunachal Pradesh so as to find a mutual and amicable solution to this problem.
Officials from the Jal Shakti ministry, however, informed the committee that operation of hydro-power projects is carried out by project authorities and State Governments as per standard operating procedure.
Directions have already been issued mandating project authorities and the State government for advance information regarding releases from dams and reservoirs to downstream areas and lower riparian states.
“The three existing Run-of-the River (RoR) type hydro-electric projects (HEPs) in State of Arunachal Pradesh utilize small live storage for power generation on diurnal basis. During high inflow time, excess water is allowed to flow through the spillway, as the same can’t be stored in small reservoirs. Even otherwise, this excess water during rains used to flow down to downstream locations. The flow regime in the river is not much affected by operation of these RoR type of projects and in fact has insignificant impact in downstream flooding,” the Jal Shakti officials said.
They said that these projects are operated by the developers in close coordination with administrative authority of downstream areas.
Further, during techno economic appraisal of Hydro Power Project, the aspects related to storage, poundage, RoR are looked into by Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and Central Water Commission (CWC), the officials said.