Unchecked construction

Himalayan projects need better regulation

Efforts are underway to rescue 40 construction workers trapped when the tunnel they were working on in the high Himalayas collapsed. This section of the government’s Char Dham national highway project is between Brahmakhal and Yamunotri in the Uttarkashi region. While there are good reasons to hope that there will be no loss of life on this occasion and that the workers will come through their ordeal unscathed, the fact remains that this is yet another wake-up call that large infrastructure projects in India’s mountainous regions are being pushed forward for political reasons with minimal technical and environmental appraisal. Such appraisals are not mechanisms for delaying vital work. They are essential to ensure that work in these inhospitable regions of the country does not prove to be hazardous to those on the site or to those who use the infrastructure after it is completed. These areas are prone to landslides, flash floods, and even earthquakes. Infrastructure constructed there must be particularly resilient. The dangers to which they are vulnerable are multiple in the age of climate change, which has led to an increase in weird weather and unexpected cloudbursts.

In this context, grandiose construction projects such as the Char Dham highways cannot be seen as anything but dangerous unless they are meticulously planned in association with climate scientists and ecological specialists. News comes every few weeks that another major project in these areas has suffered. It has not even been a few weeks since the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Power Project, on the borders of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, saw a major landslide that threw construction in the region into jeopardy. The landslide blocked the only remaining tunnel being used to ensure that the water in the river flows around the location where the dam is under construction. It appears that eight separate diversion tunnels have been damaged by landslides.

In early October, flash floods in the upper reaches of the Teesta river washed away parts of the Chungthang Dam and caused the shutdown of the Teesta-V Power Station (alongside one reported fatality at the station). Teesta-III and Teesta-IV were damaged by silt, and the construction of Teesta-VI was severely set back. NHPC said in a regulatory filing that it had suffered damages worth Rs 233.56 crore. Earlier in the summer, the Central Electricity Authority had estimated that floods in the month of July had cost the hydropower sector Rs 164 crore.

It is time to take a step back and re-evaluate the process by which such projects are approved and cleared. Political will for socially significant projects such as Char Dham cannot substitute for technocratic ability on whether they are feasible. It is also necessary to evaluate the engineering skill being brought to play in such constructions and whether the implementing agencies are up to the task, particularly given the additional complications being wrought by climate change. To all these basic questions must also be added, of course, concern about the ecological sensitivity of the Himalayas, which are a unique biosphere that needs special care and preservation.