The near-death of one of India’s most distinguished
scientists has halted work on a major hydroelectric dam in the
Himalayas. Professor AD Agarwal, 77, former dean of the Indian
Institute of Technology Delhi at Kanpur, has been on hunger strike for
38 days in protest against a project that would dam the waters of a
Ganges tributary.
"The water ... is not ordinary water to a
Hindu. It is a matter of the life and death of Hindu faith," Agarwal
said, before beginning his fast in January.
This is his second
fast in the past year, which he called off last week only after the
Indian government agreed that it would look into electricity generation
that would not impede the flow of the holy Ganges. The river must run
free in order to maintain its sacred status.
However, this dam
project is only one of the hundreds planned to for the Himalayan
foothill regions of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan. The power needs
of these nations are rising, but according to a recent report by the
NGO International Rivers, many are being carried out with little
environmental assessment.
"If all the planned capacity expansion
materializes, the Himalayan region could have the highest concentration
of dams in the world. The dams' reservoirs, tunnels, transmission lines
and related works will destroy thousands of houses, rivers, forests,
spiritual sites and even parts of the highest highway in the world, the
Karakoram highway," says Shripad Dharmadhikary, one of South Asia's
leading water and energy experts and authors of the report, titled
"Mountains of Concrete".
"Damming and diversion of [Himalayan]
rivers will severely disrupt downstream flows, impacting agriculture
and fisheries and threatening livelihoods of entire populations,"
warned Dharmadhikary.
The report also cautions that climate
change and the melting of the Himalayan ice cover would reduce the
anticipated amount of electricity generated. As the glaciers melt, the
initial increase of water flow will later decrease, as the rivers’
source disappears.
The report points out that "[t]he impact of
global warming is already being felt much more in the Himalayas than in
other parts of the world. This is resulting in the accelerated melting
of glaciers and the depletion of the massive water store of the region.
There are real fears the snow-covered mountains [will turn] into bare,
rocky mountains. As glaciers melt, water in the rivers will rise, and
dams will be subjected to much higher flows, raising concerns of dam
safety.”
