Gopeshwar: The glacial burst near Chamoli district’s Raini village, the cradle of the Chipko movement, should serve as a wake-up call to stop the rampage on the Himalayan ecological system in the name of development, according to Magsaysay awardee Chandi Prasad Bhatt. He said Monday that many power projects in the area should not have been given environmental clearance. The 87-year-old environmentalist was a Chipko movement leader. Chandi Prasad Bhatt said projects like the Rishi Ganga hydel project, which bore the brunt of Sunday’s calamity, should not have started.
Bhatt said that in 2010 he had written to the then environment minister warning against the adverse effects of the project. “Had my advice been heeded, the loss of lives and large scale damage to property at the project site could have been prevented. The mindless rampaging on the Himalayas in the name of development must stop,” asserted Bhatt.
A portion of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district Sunday. It triggered an avalanche and a deluge in the Alaknanda river system that washed away hydroelectric stations. The calamity has left at least 10 people dead. Also 143 are and they are feared dead also.
Also read: Scientists leave for Uttarakhand for surveillance, reconnaissance after glacier burst
The sudden flood in the middle of the day in the Dhauli Ganga, Rishi Ganga and Alaknanda rivers — all intricately linked tributaries of the Ganga — triggered widespread panic and large-scale devastation in the high mountain areas.
Two power projects – NTPC’s Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project and the Rishi Ganga Hydel Project – were extensively damaged with scores of labourers trapped in tunnels as the waters came rushing in.
Bhatt pointed out that the Himalayas are too delicate to bear too much human intervention. The man who has also been honoured with the International Gandhi Peace Prize, said, “Sunday’s avalanche was a wake-up call. So was the 2013 Kedarnath deluge in which thousands perished but authorities refuse to learn from natural calamities.”
A devastating natural disaster in the form of torrential rains of unseen magnitude had June 16-17, 2013 struck Kedarnath.
“The Chipko movement had begun from Raini village after large scale devastation in the Rishi Ganga and Alakananda Valleys caused by a devastating flood in 1970. The flood awakened the locals to the need of saving the forests of Raini,” said Bhatt who lives in Gopeshwar. The movement had resulted in a ban on cutting of trees in the catchment area of the Alaknanda river, he informed.
Women from Raini village of Uttarakhand had started the movement in the 1970s by clinging onto trees to prevent them from being cut. Though the movement was started to prevent the felling of trees, it went on to become an inspiration for environment conservation.
Bhatt said environmental clearance to a 13 MW hydel project in a river close to its point of origin in a Himalayan glacier amounts to inviting calamities like this. Environmental clearance to projects like that on the Rishi Ganga without proper consideration could be highly detrimental to the delicate Himalayan ecological system. It also results in inordinate delay in clearance to infrastructural projects of public use, he said.
Bhatt also underscored the need for updating the knowledge of the ecological system connected with places where rivers like the Ganga and its tributaries originate in the Himalayas.
“On the points where the Ganga or its tributaries originate there are not only glaciers but also lakes of varying sizes, big and small, about which our knowledge is negligible. It needs to be augmented,” Bhatt pointed out.
“We need to identify such lakes and glaciers, show them on our maps and keep a tab on them. An effective mechanism of sharing basic information on their vulnerability with the local administration and the local populace should also be developed,” Bhatt stressed.