As the Indian juggernaut hurtles into the future, the ecology in large parts of the country is being lost to mammoth dams. With the Sardar Sarovar Project eliciting widespread response, both good and bad, from Indians of all hues, the long-standing debate seems to be gathering force. Roshni Sengupta and Subrata Kumar Sahu enter the dam debate on an argumentative note.
Lost was the legal document of our house, so was my seventh-standard geography textbook!
—Poet-bureaucrat Rajendra Kishor Panda, whose ancestral home remains buried in the Hirakud Dam Reservoir in Orissa (translated)
The geography textbook is meanwhile replaced by new ones, many times over. The new ‘temples of modern India’ have sprouted all over. India has stepped into the 21st century with a striking presence in the new-order world economy. Our lifestyle has improved; our consumption of commodities has increased; the overall demands of water, energy, food, transport, and world-class products are rising by the day. So, at the outset, it is difficult to argue against the view that large dams are inevitable if we have to keep pace with a changing world, considering the claims that these dams bring in irrigation, electricity, drinking water supply, navigation, recreation, and so on.
But then, if large dams are inevitable, is the consequential damage inevitable too? Large-scale displacement of people, as we learn from experts, could be compensated with well-planned rehabilitation measures, though there is hardly any instance of this being done efficiently anywhere in the world. Can the massive stress on the natural environment and ecosystems associated with the river be negated or mitigated? Environmentalists send out a loud chorus: ‘the price paid in terms of environmental damage is much too high to ignore.’ As the debate intensifies on political and social platforms, we examine the possible environmental impacts that large dams could have.
Big dams: hurting the environment
A report of the WCD (World Commission on Dams), Dams and Development, 2000 points out that ‘inundation of reservoir area kills terrestrial plants and forests and displaces animals.’ Also changes in the flow pattern, habitat conditions, and blocking of migration routes critically affect lifecycles of species living in and near the river (Damned Rivers, Damned Lives, 2003). The aquatic ecosystems downstream that essentially depend on the natural flow of the river are faced with danger once river water stagnates in the reservoir.
Due to the SSP (Sardar Sarovar Project) reservoir in the Narmada valley, close to 150 floral species – such as teak, bamboo, arjan, tendu, and salai – of immense economic, nutritional, and cultural importance to local tribals have been lost. Very few animals survive today in the submergence area. Threatened species, such as the Marsh crocodile, the hilsa, giant freshwater prawn, and mehseer are on the verge of losing their habitat. The Narmada estuary in Bharuch – one of the last known breeding places of hilsa – producing 13 000 tonnes of fish and freshwater prawn – faces the risk of dying out.
More than 40 million hectares of land has been lost due to the construction of some 45 000 big dams the world over – most of it fertile agricultural land with rich top soil and forests with rich vegetation. The SSP reservoir will submerge about 13 743 hectares of forestland while 2493 hectares of forestland has already been clear-felled.
Farmers in river valleys, rely heavily on the annual flood, which helps irrigate their farmland and carries nutrient-rich silt to fertilize the soil. So, a dam built upstream spells disaster for these farmers. Due to the absence of silt flow downstream, fisheries plummet drastically—at times catches reducing by 97%. Also, riverbed erosion worsens, as there is no silt deposition to replace the loss. Most importantly, trapping of silt behind the dam throws off-balance the initial assessment of a dam’s capacity and leads to premature closure of vital operations. The Laoying dam in China, for example, silted up before it produced a single megawatt of electricity.
As the reservoir fills with water, the submerged vegetation begins to rot, which, accompanied with the carbon inflow from the catchment, emit greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. An estimate by the World Commission on Dams suggest that ‘the gross emissions [of greenhouse gases] from reservoirs may account for between 1% and 28% of the global warming potential of greenhouse gas emissions.’ So, ironically, while hydropower produced from dammed reservoirs is tipped as clean energy, the source itself contributes significantly to global warming!
The rotting vegetation produces biological and chemical oxygen that demands more from the storage water, transforming it into a stinking morass. The stagnating water in the reservoir, as also of residual water pools and waterlogged lands in surrounding areas, could increase the incidence of diseases like malaria. Combating this threat, according to action plans, would be possible only with the use of pesticides, which is a serious health hazard in itself. The ‘engineer-made malaria’ (a term used as far back as 1938) would thus prove to be a nightmare as facilities to combat such epidemics is woefully inadequate in states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Although the list of known impacts of large dams on the environment and ecosystems does not end here, it is enough to send a wake-up call to humanity. No wonder – as the Berkeley-based International River Network reports – that ‘the United States, whose 5500 dams make it the second most dammed country in the world, has stopped building large dams, and is now spending great amounts of money trying to fix the problems created by the existing ones.’
Damming development
As big-dams came to be equated with national pride and dam-building with nation-building, small, traditional systems that had been managed by village communities for thousands of years atrophied and died. At a count of 4291 dams, big and small, India today can proudly (?) boast of being the world’s third largest dam builder. Notable projects such as the celebrated Bhakra, Hirakud, Tungabhadra, Nagarjuna Sagar, and Farakka Barrage, completed between 1957 and 1994, stand testimony to the Indian state’s devotion to big dams.
Pronounced and promoted as the panacea for all ills plaguing the rural landscape each hydroelectric or irrigation project that state planners undertake, establishes their primacy that has been the hallmark of the Indian development paradigm. As a shining India is celebrated, both human and animal life faces the threat of extinction, left at the mercy of the rising waters of the most expensive and ambitious river-impounding endeavour as they submerge large tracts of land along with countless homes, hearths and habitats.
While proponents of the efficacy and usefulness of large dams laud these behemoths with arguments such as rapidly changing climatic conditions, size of population and overall economic planning of the nation, critics, at the cost of appearing offensive and severe, highlight the plight of the displaced people and the dismembered lands. ‘Surface irrigation, hydropower and flood control are three cardinal principles of modern economic development,’ says Chetan Pandit, chairperson, Indian Water Resources Society and adds, ‘Since we are not a rain-surplus country, surface storages in the form of dams and reservoirs are a must. The impounded water is also the primary source of hydropower, supplying the ‘peaking power’, that is extra power required during peaking hours. Further, large dams are the only way to control devastating floods.’
Anti-dam activists such as Himanshu Thakker, South Asia coordinator, Dams, Rivers and People, on the other hand demand a white paper on any credible, independent post facto evaluation of all the post-independence dams. Elaborates Thakker, ‘Only such an evaluation can throw up the requisite data. Any evaluation should also ask the question if the dam was the best option for the objectives set out? Without such evaluations, we will be only groping in the dark.’ The Bradford Morse-World Bank review (1991) of the SSP was arguably the most comprehensive indictment of the abject need for damming the Narmada, India’s least polluted river. The review committee report held a well-authenticated secret in its 357 pages: environmental impacts of the Projects have not been properly considered or adequately addressed. It also cautioned against the perils of proceeding with construction without full knowledge of the human and environmental costs.
Arundhati Roy described the Narmada Valley Development Project as ‘India’s Greatest Planned Environmental Disaster’ in her path-breaking 1999 essay, The Greater Common Good. Fellow activists couldn’t agree more. With 29 major, 135 medium and 3000 minor projects in various stages of progress, the likely total submergence of 37 533 hectares of land including 13 385 hectares of prime forest land and 40 727 families on the brink of losing everything they held dear, one gets the feeling that Roy and her comrades are dead right.
The NVDA (Narmada Valley Development Authority) clarifies that Gujarat has already allotted 6 350 hectares of agricultural land and 2 682 house plots to all PAFs (Project affected families) while Madhya Pradesh too has affected similar allocations. In fact, 1 042 PAFs (out of 14 124 PAFs) have been moved to Gujarat. Does this solve the problem?
The Maheshwar project – one of the 29 large dams in the Narmada valley and India’s first fully privatized hydel project – is being built upstream of the river near Mandleshwar in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh. It is common knowledge that the 42 kilometre reservoir will submerge both a rich land economy – black cotton soils irrigated by pumps from the river on which grow wheat, cotton, and spices – as well as a thriving river economy. And what of the people of the region, an integral part of the ecosystem? Does reality reflect what the official documentation holds?
Big dam planners and policy makers would sing praises of the development strategy adopted by post-British Raj India. Dam oustees, the oppressed and the ‘wretched of the earth’ decry the progress as development. ‘The people affected by large projects of the 1950s like the Bhakra, Pong and Hirakud are yet to be resettled. Norms have been flouted with impunity and this is not limited to dam oustees alone. It pervades all spheres,’ explains Himanshu Thakkar, resonating the voice of the still-tottering rural India.
Alternatives abound
The WCD report also highlights the pervasive and systematic failure to assess the range of potential negative impacts of damming rivers that have traditionally been the lifelines of millions of people across the world. True to its name, the lengthy study establishes the fact that the potential beneficiaries of big dam projects are never those who are mercilessly displaced by them.
This is not a slogan alone. The report acknowledges that small-scale options such as micro-hydro, home-scale solar, wind and biomass systems offer an important near-term, possibly long-term, and sustainable alternative particularly in rural areas. Now, hard-boiled proponents of big dams would immediately take offence, but take a moment off and sample a story…one of great hope!
What, pray, is ‘people’s energy’? An aphorism for a communist takeover of electricity PSUs? In mid-2002, the Maharashtra Minister for Rural Development, R R Patil inaugurated the Bilgaon micro-hydel project – an endeavour of the NBA, PSE (People’s School of Energy) and the people of Bilgaon to light up their villages. Designed completely by the PSE, the project taps the power of a natural waterfall, and produces 15 kilowatt of electricity, enough to light the 12 padas (hamlets) that fall within 4 kilometres of this tribal village. A two-metre high check dam stores 15 lakh litres of water, which is channeled into a tank storing 30 000 litres. Water flows at the rate of 400 litres a second from a height of 8 metres to drive a turbine which in turn, drives a generator at the rate of 1 500 rotations per minute providing electricity to Bilgaon. In the months of full flow, the Uday river is the source of this energy.
The hydel project, based on the principles of sustainability and equitable sharing has solved the drinking water and electricity problem in Bilgaon. Farmers can now plan for a second crop and what is more, the turbine also drives a mill. All members of the Bilgaon Navnirman Samiti, the residents are assured a decent supply of energy.
Another little story of hope lies some kilometers away in Domkhedi, another decrepit adivasi village now almost entirely submerged in the whirling waters of the Narmada. A mini micro-hydel project producing 300 watt of electricity was first built in Domkhedi in the year 2000. Most of it lies ruined now, perhaps never to be resurrected again.
And the argument continues…
Mr. M Gopalakrishnan, President, Indian water Resources Society, and New Delhi Centre of World Water Council, makes a few points on the big dam issue.
1. Why do we need big dams?
Dams and large storages help us to resolve problems of water (& power) scarcity arising out of well-known factors like temporal and spatial variations of rainfall, water needs of an ever-expanding population, the need to ensure water and food security, and even avoid any further degradation of the environment. For most of us, it is beyond doubt that big dams did help the country to achieve self-sufficiency. India could feel secure in an economic sense even in consequent drought years.
2. In the cost–benefit analysis, do you think it is fair to ignore the negative impact of big dams?
Both positive and negative impacts of big dams need to be brought out equally. What is more important in my view is to focus on a ‘no action’ scenario with respect to dams and then gauge its impact on the environment – like Co2 due to thermal and fuel emission, impact of drought on crop and cattle, out migration because of inadequate land and water use and so on.
3. How has the development paradigm adopted by India led to poverty reduction and enhanced livelihoods?
It would be utterly unfair to argue that the development paradigm did not lift us from a hopeless level of survival to better livelihood and reduced poverty levels, significantly. In the pre- big dam period conditions were miserable due to dependence on the limited traditional water sources! In the drought year of 1965, even action to import also failed to meet expected levels of demand. Big dams and the Green Revolution propelled us towards self sufficiency.
4. What are your thoughts on the issue of sustainable rehabilitation?
We must understand that nothing remains static. People have been moving out of their own habitat from time immemorial. Why don’t the activists join hands with the government to handle this task? Rehabilitation is required for those affected by other developmental projects as well. Activists must practice the same ideology for all cases. Dam projects should be seen as an opportunity for them to be assimilated in the mainstream. The activists who should be reasonable in their demands. Accusing the government for all that is wrong with the world is unfair.
5. Has the Sardar Sarovar Dam helped or harmed people in Gujarat?
I have no hesitation in stating that the Sardar Sarovar Project has helped not only Gujarat but India as a whole. It is unfortunate that people have doubts about the contribution of the Sardar Sarovar project. Without the Aswan Dam in Egypt, what would be the state of affairs in that country today? What would the economic position of the US be without big dams? Remember, each of these projects are several times bigger compared to the big dams in India.
6. How have big dams helped India come to terms with its electricity problems?
There are two aspects to this. One relates to the sectoral contribution where hydropower’s current share is just over 26% while the government aims to lift it up to 40%. Hydropower also has an ability to instantaneously rescue a collapsing Grid! It can be switched on or off as desired and thus is a prerequisite to Grid Stability. Hydropower is also eco friendly and does not have environmental side-effects. The World Water Forum 4 Mexico (March 2006) rightly endorsed the significant contribution of dams worldwide. This has led to more funding going into the construction of dams, which is a welcome step.
7. Are there really no alternatives to big dams?
Dams have their own benefits and are seldom substitutable. Small, medium and big dams are site specific and have their own admirable roles. A dam does not displace other solutions like water harvesting, which have their own limitations. Small scale measures alone would not solve the problem. Small is beautiful but big is bountiful. Big dams help the society and are the most cost effective solution. We have to come together to handle the rehabilitation issues. Let us believe in ourselves first!
Himanshu Thakkar, Coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People tells us why big dams are not the temples of modern India.
1. Why don’t we need big dams?
This is a wrong question. The right question would be, what are our water supply, irrigation, power generation and flood management needs, and what are the options available to satisfy them? A dam could be a chosen option in some cases, but by asking the question ‘Why don’t we need big dams’ we are making dams sacrosanct, instead of democratically selecting the best option.
2. Don’t dams benefit the country on the whole?
The first resultant question is: have we done a credible, independent post facto evaluation of any of the 3500 odd large projects that we have built since independence? Such an evaluation is a must. We have been fed on the propaganda that India’s current annual foodgrain production of over 200 million tonnes is due to dams like Bhakra. However, the water resources ministry confirms that no such assessment has been carried out. Two independent assessments come to the conclusion that gross contribution of such lands is about 10%.
3. Does the development paradigm adopted by India ignore disadvantaged people?
What the governments and mainstream media calls development has no place for the needs and aspirations of the disadvantaged people. Otherwise, how can a project that takes away the resources and impoverishes some of the weakest sections of the society be called development? This is not limited to only large dams of today. People affected by large dams like the Bhakra, Pong and Hirakud are yet to be resettled.
4. How can rehabilitation of ‘project affected’ people be carried out in a sustainable manner?
If such projects are to be called development projects than the affected people must be better off after the project than what they were before. We must also undo the injustices of the past. Till everyone displaced by previous dams are first resettled properly, no fresh displacements should take place. An institutional system that ensures the transparent and accountable implementation of legal provisions is a must. Decision-making on projects need to be legally defined and democratic in nature, involving all stakeholders to ensure the selection of the least cost option. Unfortunately, today, none of these (minimum) conditions are satisfied.
5. Has the Sardar Sarovar Dam helped or harmed people in Gujarat?
Over forty five years after Pandit Nehru laid the foundation stone of the project; over twenty seven years after the decision of the Narmada Tribunal Award; after spending over 21 000 crore rupees, displacing some 14 000 families already and submerging over 11 000 ha (hectares) of land; after taking away over 80% of the irrigation budget of Gujarat for the last 18 years, the project irrigated just 57 000 ha of land this year! Even though it provided drinking water to some 2044 villages and 57 towns and generated 221 crore units of power, the country lost 445 crore units due to mismanagement of the project authorities.
Gujarat has provided drinking water to thousands of villages and additional irrigation to over 3.5 lakh ha over the last five years only through decentralised water harvesting measures, spending less than 2000 crore rupees. If the government were to sincerely take up such measures all over the state, by now Gujarat would have solved its water problem. Whether the SSP has helped or harmed Gujarat is thus clear.
6. How can we meet India’s electricity needs without big dams?
Some of the available options include maintaining and operating the existing infrastructure to achieve optimum generation, stopping siltation of reservoirs, reducing transmission and distribution losses, and increasing end use efficiencies. Other factors like optimizing other demand side management options including management of peak demand, operation of existing capacities to generate peaking power, addition of hydro generation capacities and decentralized generation stations at existing dams, and following the guidelines proposed by the World Commission on Dams.
7. Are there alternatives to big dams?
Yes there are and here is a snap shot. For increasing availability of water for irrigation, available options include the proper maintenance and operation of existing reservoirs to achieve optimum irrigation, taking measures to reduce siltation of reservoirs, increasing irrigation efficiency, providing incentives and disincentives to ensure appropriate cropping patterns, completing the command area development for existing reservoir capacities, taking up rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge, and system of rice intensification through various means where appropriate.
Success stories: how the ecology was restored?
The Kent Dam on Ohio’s Middle Cuyahoga river was a barrier to fish migration and contributed to water quality problems due to stagnant flows within the dam pool, preventing the river from meeting its designated use for warm water habitat. The health and diversity of indigenous fish species was under constant threat. The structure of the dam – one of the first recorded arched dams constructed in the US – was successfully altered to overcome this problem. The Middle Cuyahoga River Restoration Project involved removal of an old canal lock east of the dam to provide for a free-flowing river channel. The former dam pool area was converted into a heritage park. The restoration project also incorporated extensive natural stream channel and stream-bank restoration above the dam. Following the restoration, the health of aquatic life has improved to an extent that it has been removed from the state’s 303 (d) list of impaired water bodies
The Mississippi river – locked and dammed since the 1930s – provides a nine-foot deep stairway of water from St Paul to St Louis. Close to 80% of the aquatic life pools have been lost due to dam-induced erosion. Backwater lakes – preferred home of bluegills, largemouth bass and waterfowl – have filled in at an average rate of a half-inch per year. The EMP (Environment Management Programme) provides funding to monitor the river and to restore habitats. The Mississippi is impounded into pools by locks and dams. Backwater habitat gives way to riverine lakes in the middle third of a pool. Techniques like dredging and altering flows in side channels are adopted to oxygenate the backwaters and keep sediment out of sensitive areas. The Mississippi’s complex web of life – deer, raccoons, mink, ducks, and turtles – have all benefited from the habitat restoration programme. For instance, the Bertom and McCartney Lakes Rehabilitation and Enhancement Project is designed to help bluegills and largemouth bass survive. A 1 500-feet channel was created to conserve and rejuvenate fish habitat.
A quiet revolution, roaring impacts
62-year-old Arjun Baba of Bhavta village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district has been part of an inspiring human endeavour that has brought several dead rivers back to life in the water-starved state. He points at a schematic diagram, drawn on a stonewall, depicting a series of check dams that has transformed his village from being a mere dark spot on the parched map of India into a lush green, water-rich livelihood formula. Without taking his eyes off the diagram, he would say, ‘This is the future map of every village in India, if at all we let it happen.’
Bhavta – like the other 1000 odd villages in Alwar – proves wrong a developmental paradigm that lauds big dams as the answer to India’s water woes for farming and drinking purposes. ‘It’s the traditional knowledge of the local community here that has made the wheel of time come full circle and set forth the path for them towards progress,’ quips Kanhailal, an activist with TBS (Tarun Bharat Sangh).
Ironically, in the early 1980s, the Rajasthan government had declared Alwar as a ‘dark zone’, due to its dangerously depleting groundwater resources! Till 1970s, people in Alwar had a symbiotic relationship with nature that ensured the sustenance of traditional water sources, which, in turn, sustained the community for centuries. ‘Over the years, however, these sustainable means of livelihood have been systematically destroyed at the altar of development,’ explains Johad: watershed in Alwar district, Rajasthan, a 1998 United Nations report.
Then how did they manage to pull out of the muddle? The arrival of TBS in 1984 did the trick. Based in Bhikampura in the Thanagazhi block of Alwar, TBS – led by Rajendra Singh who received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award later – initiated a unique movement in water conservation in the region. TBS first tried to understand the problem and, in the process, ‘learned’ from the local community that the root of all crises was the unsustainable management of water sources. With no government support in sight, TBS then mobilized the villagers to revive traditional water-harvesting structures such as johad, anicut, talaab, check dams, medbandhi, etc. The idea was not to let a single drop of rain water leave the village as run-off: arrest the rain wherever it falls! Along side, villagers took up an afforestation drive as well. The slogan was: jal, jungle, aur jeevan (water, forests, and livelihoods).
Thousands of johads and check dams were constructed, with the villagers’ contribution to the expenses standing at more than 50%, and at times more than 70%, either in the form of shram daan (voluntary labour) or cash. Within a year, the results were there for all to see. Dried-up wells were recharged with water percolating down from the small reservoirs. Slowly but surely, the entire region had transformed into a case study that an agri-economist could only dream of. Even under the scorching sun of end-May (2006), when TerraGreen visited some of the villages here, one could touch the water by stretching a hand into the wells.
Water was available in plenty, satisfying all needs of the villagers: farming, drinking and other domestic uses, drinking and bathing of the livestock, increased vegetation for grazing, and so on. People who had migrated to towns have come back home, to their traditional economic activities. With multi-crop farming (including the water-intensive wheat crop) no longer a dream, farmers now complain of the state not doing enough to improve basic infrastructures so as to provide them an accessible market for their surplus farm produce.
The implication of these traditional rain-water harvesting structures on the ecology of the region has also been tremendous, so much so that, as Arjun Baba informs, ‘Wild animals from the adjoining Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary have moved to this side of the regenerated forests. So long as the tigers were alive they were frequently spotted near the Sankda check dam in Bhavta village.’
The United Nations report, mentioned earlier, referring to the success of the ‘ingenious intervention’ in Alwar, says, ‘In contrast, large-scale structures like canals, dams, and reservoirs have yet to cover more than 30 per cent of the targeted population of the state.’
Kanhailal too wonders, ‘With the Alwar experiment so easily at sight, why do we go for big dams?’ He further warns, ‘Tampering with nature will spell doom for humanity. Tehri and Narmada stand testimony to this fact. How can you destroy the ecology of an area, and how can you displace one set of people to benefit another set? If irrigation is an issue anywhere, traditional rainwater harvesting – using local resources – provides you with more than what you want. With a mere fraction of the expenses that you budget for big dams, rainwater harvesting can cater to more number of targeted people. And, as for energy demands, with a small hydel project, a village can happily be self-reliant.’
If Alwar, with a meagre 62 cm of average annual ran fall and in a semi-arid topographical situation, can turn the table in its favour with locally available resources and without displacing anyone or destroying anything, the question remains: ‘why not elsewhere in India?’
(This article was published in the July-September 2006 issue of TerraGreen, the magazine I work for.)
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