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Dec

Ladakh to Manipur – billions lost

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 1 December 2023

MORE SILKIARAS IN MAKING

Shivaji Sarkar

Ignoring Himalayan warnings has become a habit. Kedarnath tragedy lessons were never learnt. Had it heard the Union Environment Ministry (UEM) advisories on road construction-generated woes in Rajya Sabha in 2018, possibly many disasters, all over the country could have been avoided.

The prevailing constructions from Ladakh to Arunachal and Manipur poses significant threat to the mountain ecosystem.

World Bank and Asian Development Bank wonder how Darjeeling, Shimla or Mussoorie built by the British have simple, scenic disaster-resilient roads.

Losses could only partially be measured in monetary terms. Stretches of Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, North Bengal or Manipur have been wiped off during the last few years. Could any monetisation quantify the grievous losses? According to UN ESCAP report, India suffered $ 3.2 billion losses largely due to heavy rains and floods in 2021. Post 2013 Kedarnath tragedy losses were Rs 13000 crore in Uttarakhand alone. This year’s severe floods in Uttarakhand caused irreparable losses. Himachal floods washed off large stretches of the newly constructed roads. The felled tree logs that were dumped below the newly constructed roads caused wide devastations as these floated with swirling waters.

In 2023-24, NHAI is allocated Rs 162,207 crore. It is 60 percent of the total road ministry budget and is 25 percent higher than the previous year. Even maintenance expenses were increased by 44 percent from Rs 900 crore to Rs 1300 crore, apparently to offset continuous damages. The state PWDs that do 50 percent of the repairs got Rs 280 crore against Rs 132 crore a year back. All Himalayan states have approached the centre for large fundings for reconstructions.

After 17 breathless days that the nation awaited release of 41 workers from the caved in Silkiyara tunnel in Uttarkashi, the government has decided to study the impact of road constructions. The 4.5 km tunnel is said to have no emergency safety exits.

If the 2018 warning itself had been heard, nobody would have ventured on ill-advised Char Dham road digging. The UEM warning was explicit. It said that most landslides in “Manipur were ‘anthropogenically’ induced and were caused due to several factors, including the ‘modification’ of mountain and hill slopes for construction and road widening. The state witnessed six major landslides in 2018, three in 2017, one 2015 and four in 2010”. There were more during subsequent years, the worst being the killing of 61 persons at a massive landslide at the Tulpul railway station construction for connecting to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore as part of the Trans Asian Railway. A GSI report attributed it to activities in a “highly susceptible zone” at an extensive slope cut for construction.

Ladakh to Manipur today is a severe danger zone. Reckless tree felling, clearing of vegetation and changing delicate Himalayan structure for large profits have become the norm. Silkiyara is not the first tunnel in Uttarakhand to collapse. Tapovan tunnel flooding killing at least 67 is forgotten. The Vishnuprayag project that caused Alaknanda to disappear in a 5-km stretch is history and nobody listens to the drought that Karnaprayag rail tunnel has caused in Panai Pokhri in the Chamoli district as the lone stream has dried up.

The Rs 12500 crore, 889 km Char Dham project connecting the fragile Himalayas of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri and Gangotri has been controversial since launch in December 2016. As feared heavy drilling, bulldozing and construction was causing heavy subsidence, landslides and environmental damage in different parts. Joshimath is in the news for this.

The Himachal government document says roads to cost Rs 40000 crore and massive disturbances to the state ecology. It means the system has not learnt from mistakes. The 2023 summer floods caused extensive devastation and loss of lives due to post-road construction change of environment. If more roads are constructed, it means that the state could face worse consequences.

The damages at Tulpul in Manipur were not caused by the disturbances in vulnerable slope alone. The debris dumped, as in Himachal, blocked the natural water flow of the rivers in areas with several geological fault lines. It tore apart s geologically weak zones.

String of dams in Uttarakhand mostly not far from road projects are emerging as potential threats. The lakes formed in delicate areas are potential threats, including the Tehri dam. It has added to reservoir-induced seismicity and increased incidences of landslides observed in the reservoir rim.

 Building of dams in the Himalayas is not considered safe. The October cloudburst in Sikkim, coupled with the melting of the Lhonak glacier at height of 17,100 feet, caused glacier lake outburst flood (GLOF). The sudden gushing waters washed away Teesta Stage 3 dam, known as Urja project. It led to massive destructions downstream damaging thousands of buildings, wiped off roads and collapsed 111 major bridges. It claimed many lives, including those of army men.

Tehri dam authorities claim that it could withstand earthquake of 8.5 magnitude on Richter scale. The Supreme Court experts committee headed by Dr Ravi Chopra, director of People’s Science Institute, stated that several floods were aggravated by hydroelectricity projects. The poor waste management aggravates disasters. Professor James Brune, a prominent seismologist, said: “We have to conclude that the proposed Tehri Dam's location is one of the most hazardous in the world from the point of earthquakes”. He sounds prophetic. Does it mean downhill, regions up to Rishikesh vulnerable, if it meets the Lhonak fate?

May be those are extreme views. But the road and rail projects from Ladakh to Manipur everywhere are having disastrous effect. To cite one, Adi Kailash in Pithoragarh was recently inaugurated as a tourist point for viewing the Kailash peak. Areas around were blasted to build roads and other facilities. Only days later, on September 23, a hill came crashing down killing seven persons and changing the topography of the region.

While improvements are welcome but an end to the toll-levied massive greed is must to preserve the pristine regions for the existence of the Himalayas. If Himalayas are lost to silly constructions, entire ecology of the subcontinent could alter for the worse. In 1980, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi had stopped the Tehri dam construction, the government now should consider thawing all road, dam, hydro and other construction activities. For small profits, nobody should be allowed to play with the Himalayas. 

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