Yamuna Dam Raises Flood Fears In Delhi: 'Lakhwar-Vyasi Project Could Have 'Catastrophic' Consequences'

While the ravages caused by floods in Uttarakhand and more recently in Kashmir still haunt the nation, the central government has decided to execute the Lakhwar-Vyasi hydroelectric project in the Yamuna valley.

It is feared the project could have catastrophic consequences for the national capital.

Environmentalists warn that apart from the eastern, northeastern and western parts of Delhi, the south of the city may also be under water in the event of a flood. 

Environmentalists have expressed their concerns to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that Delhi may be inundated as the project will be executed on a highly seismically-active zone that is prone to landslides.
But the Central Water Commission (CWC) claims that all critical issues, including those of forests and environmental clearances, have been addressed.

“It is assured that any project of such scale is planned only when it is necessary and it goes through rigorous scrutiny right from its appraisal to clearance. Various ministries and departments are consulted… so as to appropriately take care of interest of various stakeholders in the project,” Sanjiv Aggarwal, Chief  Engineer, CWC, said in a letter (dated January 29, 2015) to retired IFS officer Manoj Misra of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan. 

Mishra was one of the signatories among 50 environmentalists and environmental groups who wrote a letter to the prime minister on September 14, 2014, seeking abandonment of the proposed Lakhwar-Vyasi project. 

Other groups, including Save the Rivers Campaign, Citizens Concern for Dams and Development and Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath, and individuals like Medha Patkar of Narmada Bachao Andolan and Vandana Shiva of Navdanya also signed the letter. 

The proposed Lakhwar-Vyasi project is the biggest on the Yamuna so far, and entails construction of a massive 204-metre-high dam with storage capacity of 580 million cubic metres. 

The project also involves submergence of 1385.2 ha of land, including 868.08 ha of forest land, which is likely to affect 50 villages. 

Significantly, the proposed site is situated just about 120 km downstream of the holy shrine of Yamnotri, where the Yamuna River originates.

According to ecologists, the project, conceived first in 1986, with a large reservoir, is to come up in an area (the Yamuna valley) that is seismically active, prone to flash-floods, erosion and landslides, as stated in a research paper of Padma Bhushan-acclaimed seismologist K.S. Valdiya, which has also strongly spoken out against construction of big dams in the region. 

Besides “the spillway capacity of the project has been dangerously underestimated resulting in significant risks of dam damage or breakage with concomitant risks of unprecedented downstream flooding and destruction,” the letter by the environmentalists asserted. 

While the project spillway capacity is proposed to be 8000 cumecs, the location, as per latest scientific estimates, was likely to experience probable maximum flood of 18,000 cumecs. 

Ecology groups had warned that in any such event, cities like the holy Paonta Sahib and the capital city of Delhi would be affected. 

The national capital would directly face deluge as it is the first city downstream sitting on the river (unlike Panipat, Sonepat, Karnal and Yamunanagar, which are a few kilometres away). 

Warning that “the river would be completely destroyed both in the upstream and downstream of the project” situated near its very origin, the plea sought that the first 120 km of the Yamuna be declared an eco-sensitive zone, similar to the first 120km of Ganga from Gangotri to Uttarkashi since not only the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins, but the Yamuna basin, too, inflicted massive floods during the June 2013 disaster in the state. 

While stating that the project did not undergo “basic, credible or social appraisal in any participatory manner” and lacked any “legally valid environmental or forest clearance”, the plea claimed that no cumulative impact assessment of various existing, under-construction and planned dams, barrages and hydro-projects in the Yamuna system have been done despite the recommendations of the Ravi Chopra committee appointed by the Environment Ministry in the wake of the June 2013 disaster in Uttarakhand. 

The Environment Ministry’s affidavit to the Supreme Court in December last year had endorsed the panel’s report stating that hydro power projects in the Ganga-Bhagirathi and Alaknanda basins had strained the state’s environment in the form of loss of forests, degraded forest quality, geological and social impacts and have enhanced landslides and other disasters. 

The ministry had also stated, “it is pertinent to conclude that there has been a direct and an indirect impact of these HEPs (hydro-electric projects) in the aggravation of the floods of 2013”. 

Apart from critically disastrous impacts, doubts were also expressed over the actual total power generation capacity of the project, compared to the Tehri dam which is alleged to have “killed the Ganga river system”. 

Claiming that the dam was highly susceptible to breakage on account of various reasons, Manoj Misra of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan and a retired IFS officer, said: “The government’s decision to pursue it is contrary to its own ambition of seeking an aviral (continuous), nirmal (pure) flow of Ganga and its tributaries and its own stance before the Supreme Court. They want it for supplying water for Delhi while ignoring the potential of water harvesting and conservation of the city’s vast and extensive natural water bodies.” 

“Mounting evidence shows that climate variation is bound to cause changes in rainfall pattern, landslides, flashfloods, glacial melt and increased peak flood profile. It (CWC) says that all environmental rules have been followed and its design is correct, while ignoring the fact that in the last two decades, the geomorphology, physical features, including the forests and biodiversity, has changed,” he said.