Controversial Athirappilly hydroelectric project dumped by Kerala

Kerala decides to dump a hydro power project due to multiple ecological and social concerns

 Controversial Athirappilly hydroelectric project dumped by Kerala

---

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

---

• The story: The Kerala government called off the proposed 163-megwatt Athirappilly hydroelectric power project on the Chalakudy river basin in Thrissur district. There was mounting opposition from environmentalists and tribal organisations against the construction in the biodiverse and state’s only riverine forest. The forest department will return Rs 4.11 crore deposited about two decades ago by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) as seigniorage for cutting and removing trees from the proposed project construction area.
• Local protests: The forest department had to fell 15,145 giant trees from the project area to facilitate the commencement of the construction. The controversial project might have submerged at least 136 hectares of virgin forests and uprooted hundreds of tribal people. The residents of Athirappally and Vazhachal villages on the basin that were facing threats of submergence have welcomed the decision with jubilation. The move of returning money indicates that KSEB is abandoning the project permanently, said SP Ravi of the Chalakudy River Protection Forum. He added:
• Restart at zero: Even if the government rethinks for revival, it will have to begin at zero. A fresh environmental clearance has to be obtained and a new environmental impact study must be conducted. New forest clearance projects also must have to be initiated. The tribal communities see this as a victory over organised lobbies.
• Clearances timeline: The project proposal was mooted first in 1979 with the idea to generate 163MW electricity from river water. It got environmental clearance for the first time in 1998. The project was suspended in 2001 after the Kerala High Court ordered the electricity board first to conduct a public hearing. The Union ministry of environment and forests issued a second environment clearance in 2005, which the high court again quashed, citing large scale procedural violations. The project got a third environmental clearance in 2007 that depended on the report of a  central expert team that visited the project area. In 2012, a report by the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) called the project ‘undesirable’ and highlighted the threats it would pose to ecology. The subsequent Kasturirangan panel said it could be carried forward based on its re-evaluation report. The KSEB read this decision as as a "go ahead".

1. In June 2020, the Kerala government gave a go-ahead to KSEB to establish the project, ignoring the enormous environmental and livelihood costs. The approval had evoked angry responses from conservationists across India.
2. The Kadar tribal community faced continued displacement due to the commissioning of different hydel power projects in the Chalakudy river basin. Geetha, a fourth-generation representative of the group, emerged as the leader and face of the unique agitation involving forest protection and tribal rights protection concerns over the years.
3. Over two decades, the pro-dam lobby revived the project several times, conveniently ignoring stringent parts of the Forest Rights Act. Experts said a dam cannot be constructed without the approval of the primitive people that stand to be affected, according to the act.
4. KSEB, on its part, said it visualised the hydroelectric project in Chalakudy as the third-largest in the state. Right from the beginning, however, conservationists and river experts had warned that the project, if implemented, would submerge the only remaining low-elevation riparian forests left along the Western Ghats, one among the eight environmental hotspots in the world.

• Warnings over the years: The Silent Valley was among the first of India’s ecological movements with massive participation, during the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. It forced the Kerala government to abandon a dam project across Kunthi River, inside the evergreen tropical forests of Silent Valley in the Palakkad district of Kerala. Every previous government, be it the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) or the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front, faced strong resistances on conservationists, tribal residents and other local people for going ahead with the Athirappilly project.

1. A report of the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, under the chairmanship of eminent environmental scientist VS Vijayan, had also warned in 1997 that the power project would adversely affect the ecology of the fragile river ecosystem of the region.
2. The construction of the seventh dam along the 145-kilometre course of the Chalakudy river would destroy all the remaining endemic species of flora and fauna in the Athirappilly-Vazhachal region, which includes four rare varieties of hornbills, according to green activists.
3. The largest volumes of water discharge when the shutters of Kerala dams were opened during  2018 floods were not from major projects like Idukki or Idamalayar dams but from Peringalkuthu dam that situates in the Chalakudy river and just above the catchment area of the proposed Athirappilly dam. While 750,000 litres burst out from the Idukki reservoir per second, it was one million litres a second when the shutters of Peringalkuthu were opened.
4. The Madhav Gadgil-led WGEEP, in an elaborate report, had termed Athirappilly hydel project ‘undesirable’ and categorised it as futile on environmental technical and economic grounds. “The Athirapally dam has insufficient water to generate the electricity capacity claimed by the board,” the report said.  In the last four decades, the water level in the river has decreased considerably because of climate change and deforestation.
5. The Gadgil report had stated unequivocally that the hydel project would destroy the Chalakudy river's fragile ecology and seriously affect the Kadar community's earnings and livelihoods. Even those who live outside the submergence areas would be affected.
6. The Kasturirangan panel that came later, however, just prepared a note of claims by the electricity board and the counterclaims by the Kadars. It simply recommended a re-evaluation of the project's impact on ecological grounds.

• Summary: The constant conflict between environmental protection needs and infra building needs has taken another sharp turn, with this event.
• EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explain the faultlines that exist in the infrastructure story of India, when viewed from the nature preservation perspective.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

#power #energy #hydropower #Kerala #Gadgil #Kasturirangan #tribals

Join UPSC Self Prep course | Online Course (PT Gurukul)  | Covid Special Course | Join PT courses

* Content sourced from free internet sources (publications, PIB site, international sites, etc.). Take your own subscriptions. Copyrights acknowledged.