SC committee rejects 23 of 24 proposed Uttarakhand hydro projects.

The Supreme Court monitoring committee formed by the ministry of environment and forests to study 24 proposed hydro projects on the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers in Uttarakhand has published minutes of meetings on the MoEF website, and unanimously decided not to recommend 23 of the new projects, worth 2683.6 megawatts.


The committee was set up in October 2013 after the SC took note of a Wildlife Institute of India report that pointed the extensive threat to biodiversity because of these projects. The court directed the MoEF to set up a committee to examine the projects. The committee's recommendations could hit Uttarakhand's ambitious plan for self-sufficiency in the power sector.


'We compute the cost of producing one megawatt of power at anything between Rs 8 crore to 10 crore,' a senior Uttarakhand Power Corporation Ltd official told TOI on condition of anonymity on Tuesday. By his reckoning, the cost of shelved projects could be as high as around Rs 20,000 crore. The minutes of the meetings were uploaded on UPCL website a few days ago.


Members of the committee approved only one of the 24 projects, Kotlibhel (195mw), saying it was in a 'comparatively low biodiversity sensitive area', and would not significantly impact wildlife. However, they noted that the project could impede the free flow of the river up to 20 km downstream.