Guwahati, July 19: The Assam government today gave a detailed presentation on the Lower Subansiri hydro-electric project to its MLAs in an apparent attempt to allay fears over the downstream impact of the mega project.
Power minister Pradyut Bordoloi made a PowerPoint presentation on the progress of the project and apprised the MLAs about steps taken to counter the downstream impact of the project.
The presentation was made at the Central Hall of the Assam Legislative Assembly after today's Assembly session ended.
Lower Subansiri is the biggest hydro-electric project undertaken in the country so far.
The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) is implementing the project at Gerukamukh near North Lakhimpur on the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
The 2000MW hydro-electric project, including a 116-metre concrete gravity dam, is likely to be completed in 2014.
Environmental activists and several local organisations and political parties have raised concerns about the possible downstream impact of the project.
The power minister told the MLAs that on behalf of the Assam government, the Planning Commission has constituted a committee of technical experts, comprising former secretaries of ministry of water resources and Central Water Commission C.D. Thatte and M.S. Reddy, to look into the structural and seismological aspects of the project.
The committee will also examine the technical parameters for the safety and stability of the dam.
Bordoloi said on March 7 this year, a joint steering committee of the power ministry had recommended that the reservoir should be operated in such a way that high floods can be suitably moderated by regulated discharge, minimisation of discharge of water from the dam, installation of warning systems, strengthening and raising of embankments.
The power minister said the Assam government wanted that Assam and Arunachal Pradesh should equally share free power from the project.
He also said the All Assam Students' Union and Prafulla Kumar Mahanta led-AGP government in the state had, on several occasions, urged the Centre to construct a dam on the Subansiri.
"The permission to construct the project was granted when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was at the Centre and AGP government was in the state," the minister said.
"Moreover, BJP Lok Sabha MP from Assam Bijoya Chakraborty was the Union minister for water resources when the project was cleared. Surprisingly, now she feigns ignorance about it," Bordoloi said.
However, an eight-member panel of experts, jointly constituted by NHPC, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the Assam government, had found "gross inadequacies" in its design and construction of the dam.
According to the panel of experts, the site selected for the mega dam of the present dimension "was not appropriate in such a geologically and seismologically sensitive location".
The expert group, comprising experts from IIT Guwahati and Gauhati and Dibrugarh universities, was set up to study the downstream impact of the project.
There are no comments yet