The scary part however is that this can happen in pretty much any state in India.
The 126 megawatt (MW) Larji Hydro Electric Project (HEP) on River Beas in Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
On the evening of June 8, at least 24 students, including six girls, from the Hyderabad-based VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology were feared washed away by strong currents in the Beas near Thalot village in Mandi district of the state when a large quantity of water was allegedly released from the dam’s reservoir.
The students, who were tourists on their way from Shimla to Manali, had stopped near Thalot to walk to the river bank to take pictures with the Beas in the background. However, things went awry when a sudden gush of water from the reservoir washed them away.
According to news reports, the Larji HEP gave no warning or announcement before releasing the water. Around 6.15 pm, it released 50 cusecs of water, then 150 cusecs and 200 cusecs after 15 minute intervals, which flooded the river and left the students trapped. So far, rescue workers have recovered five bodies, while 19 others are still missing. The chances of their survival are said to be slim because of the tough terrain and the cold. Angered by the callousness of the project authorities, people blocked the Mandi-Manali highway and hundreds of vehicles were stranded.
Whereas the exact reason for the sudden release of water is still not known (as the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, which runs the Larji HEP, has not issued any statement on the tragedy), two possible ‘theories’ are doing the rounds. According to the first theory, there was a sudden drop in the demand for electricity, because of which excess water not required for power generation was suddenly released by the Larji HEP. However, this theory is hard to accept because Northern India has been reeling under long power cuts, with the situation even turning violent in cities such as Bokaro, Lucknow and Gorakhpur.
“As per the news reports, water was suddenly discharged at around 6.30-7 pm. Evenings are the time when the power house machines run full capacity due to high power demand. Excess water is never discharged during the evenings,” says a retired senior official. “To my mind, what possibly happened is that the power line suddenly tripped because of which machines, which till now were running on full load, stopped functioning. In such a situation, the excess water flowed out of the reservoir into the river,” he explains.
The second theory, which anti-dam activists support, is of the mismanagement of dam reservoirs. “Hydro-electric projects in India have become potential killers because of the mismanagement and lack of transparency in the reservoir management. The information on the current water-level in the reservoir, how much water is released on a particular day and time, etc. is not available in public domain. Water is released without prior warning, lives are lost, but no one is punished for the wrong operations,” says Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP). Also, there is no legally enforceable mechanism or participatory system to involve local people, who face the brunt of such projects, in reservoir management. Such a mechanism should be a part of the EIA [Environment Impact Assessment] process of all dam projects,” he adds.
The June 8 incident isn’t the first time that people have been killed due to sudden release of water from an HEP. On the night of April 7, 2005, which was Bhutadi Amavasya (new moon day), thousands of pilgrims were bathing in River Narmada at Dharaji village a few kilometers downstream of the National Hydel Development Corporation’s Indira Sagar Project (also known as the Narmada SagarProject) in Madhya Pradesh. The sudden release of water from the dam’s reservoir swept away 150 pilgrims.
Two years later, on the night of June 30, 2007, the sudden release of water from Omkareshwar dam in Madhya Pradesh submerged over 2,000 motor pumpsets belonging to local farmers, who suffered losses worth several lakhs. Shripad Dharmadhikary, who studied engineering at IIT Bombay and is the founder of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, a center to monitor, analyze and research water and energy related issues, wrote in his 2007 article published in India Together, “With this [construction of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams], the flow of the river water was altered dramatically. The water was sometimes held back behind the dam – and the river flow would drop downstream. When water was released for generation of power, the river level would rise rapidly. In both the cases, there is no warning or notice to the people, and there is little time for them to react.”
Thakkar claims such incidences of reservoir mismanagement have taken place in other states as well, such as Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu, but no responsibility was fixed and no one was held accountable. In 2011, a petition was filed in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) blaming mismanagement of Hirakud Dam’s reservoir for the extreme floods in the state in September that year.The NHRC had even issued show-cause notice to the Odisha government.
The Larji HEP has been in the eye of the storm from its very beginnings. Commissioned in 2007, the Himachal Pradesh government came under sharp attack from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in 2011for the heavy costs and time overruns in the execution of the project. The project was approved in 1987 by the Planning Commission for Rs 168.85 crore, but constructed for a whopping Rs 1,293.69 crore. The envisaged per unit and per MW cost of 24.47 paise and Rs 1.34 crore had jumped to Rs 2.40 and Rs 10.27 crore, respectively. The recent tragedy only adds to the Larji HEP’s poor record.
In spite of repeated efforts, officials of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, which owns Larji HEP, were not available for comment. “The concerned official is out on a tour,” this writer was informed.
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident, and suspended three functionaries of the Larji HEP. The Himachal Pradesh High Court has also taken suo motu cognizance of the projects authorities’ “grave negligence”, and has given the state seven days to file a status report on the incident.
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The 126 megawatt (MW) Larji Hydro Electric Project (HEP) on River Beas in Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
On the evening of June 8, at least 24 students, including six girls, from the Hyderabad-based VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology were feared washed away by strong currents in the Beas near Thalot village in Mandi district of the state when a large quantity of water was allegedly released from the dam’s reservoir.
The students, who were tourists on their way from Shimla to Manali, had stopped near Thalot to walk to the river bank to take pictures with the Beas in the background. However, things went awry when a sudden gush of water from the reservoir washed them away.
According to news reports, the Larji HEP gave no warning or announcement before releasing the water. Around 6.15 pm, it released 50 cusecs of water, then 150 cusecs and 200 cusecs after 15 minute intervals, which flooded the river and left the students trapped. So far, rescue workers have recovered five bodies, while 19 others are still missing. The chances of their survival are said to be slim because of the tough terrain and the cold. Angered by the callousness of the project authorities, people blocked the Mandi-Manali highway and hundreds of vehicles were stranded.
Whereas the exact reason for the sudden release of water is still not known (as the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, which runs the Larji HEP, has not issued any statement on the tragedy), two possible ‘theories’ are doing the rounds. According to the first theory, there was a sudden drop in the demand for electricity, because of which excess water not required for power generation was suddenly released by the Larji HEP. However, this theory is hard to accept because Northern India has been reeling under long power cuts, with the situation even turning violent in cities such as Bokaro, Lucknow and Gorakhpur.
“As per the news reports, water was suddenly discharged at around 6.30-7 pm. Evenings are the time when the power house machines run full capacity due to high power demand. Excess water is never discharged during the evenings,” says a retired senior official. “To my mind, what possibly happened is that the power line suddenly tripped because of which machines, which till now were running on full load, stopped functioning. In such a situation, the excess water flowed out of the reservoir into the river,” he explains.
The second theory, which anti-dam activists support, is of the mismanagement of dam reservoirs. “Hydro-electric projects in India have become potential killers because of the mismanagement and lack of transparency in the reservoir management. The information on the current water-level in the reservoir, how much water is released on a particular day and time, etc. is not available in public domain. Water is released without prior warning, lives are lost, but no one is punished for the wrong operations,” says Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP). Also, there is no legally enforceable mechanism or participatory system to involve local people, who face the brunt of such projects, in reservoir management. Such a mechanism should be a part of the EIA [Environment Impact Assessment] process of all dam projects,” he adds.
The June 8 incident isn’t the first time that people have been killed due to sudden release of water from an HEP. On the night of April 7, 2005, which was Bhutadi Amavasya (new moon day), thousands of pilgrims were bathing in River Narmada at Dharaji village a few kilometers downstream of the National Hydel Development Corporation’s Indira Sagar Project (also known as the Narmada SagarProject) in Madhya Pradesh. The sudden release of water from the dam’s reservoir swept away 150 pilgrims.
Two years later, on the night of June 30, 2007, the sudden release of water from Omkareshwar dam in Madhya Pradesh submerged over 2,000 motor pumpsets belonging to local farmers, who suffered losses worth several lakhs. Shripad Dharmadhikary, who studied engineering at IIT Bombay and is the founder of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, a center to monitor, analyze and research water and energy related issues, wrote in his 2007 article published in India Together, “With this [construction of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams], the flow of the river water was altered dramatically. The water was sometimes held back behind the dam – and the river flow would drop downstream. When water was released for generation of power, the river level would rise rapidly. In both the cases, there is no warning or notice to the people, and there is little time for them to react.”
Thakkar claims such incidences of reservoir mismanagement have taken place in other states as well, such as Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu, but no responsibility was fixed and no one was held accountable. In 2011, a petition was filed in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) blaming mismanagement of Hirakud Dam’s reservoir for the extreme floods in the state in September that year.The NHRC had even issued show-cause notice to the Odisha government.
The Larji HEP has been in the eye of the storm from its very beginnings. Commissioned in 2007, the Himachal Pradesh government came under sharp attack from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in 2011for the heavy costs and time overruns in the execution of the project. The project was approved in 1987 by the Planning Commission for Rs 168.85 crore, but constructed for a whopping Rs 1,293.69 crore. The envisaged per unit and per MW cost of 24.47 paise and Rs 1.34 crore had jumped to Rs 2.40 and Rs 10.27 crore, respectively. The recent tragedy only adds to the Larji HEP’s poor record.
In spite of repeated efforts, officials of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board, which owns Larji HEP, were not available for comment. “The concerned official is out on a tour,” this writer was informed.
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident, and suspended three functionaries of the Larji HEP. The Himachal Pradesh High Court has also taken suo motu cognizance of the projects authorities’ “grave negligence”, and has given the state seven days to file a status report on the incident.
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