Economic
Highlights
New
Delhi, 4 December 2023
Ladakh To Manipur – Billions Loss
MORE SILKYARAS IN THE MAKING
By Shivaji Sarkar
Ignoring
the 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 the Rajya Sabha in 2018, perhaps many disasters,
across the country could have been avoided.The prevailing constructions from
Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur pose significant threat to the mountain
ecosystem.
Both the
World Bank and the 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
Pradesh, 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 the swirling
waters.
In
2023-24, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI)has been allocated Rs
162,207 crore--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 Rs1300 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.
The 17
breathless days that the nation awaited rescue of 41 workers trapped from the
caved in Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi, have forced the government 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 death 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 tocollapse. Tapovan tunnel flooding killing at
least 67 is forgotten. The Vishnuprayagproject that causedAlaknandato disappear
in a 5-km stretch is history and nobody listens to the drought that Karnaprayag
rail tunnel has caused in PanaiPokhri 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.Joshimathis 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 waterswashed
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 personnel.
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 aggravatesdisasters.
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 Rishikeshvulnerable, 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 the 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 havoc with the
Himalayas.---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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