Hydro Projects Flout Rules To Maintain Minimum Ganga Flow

By Rishika Pardikar/thethirdpole.net

At least four hydropower projects have failed to comply with new government requirements to maintain a minimum flow of water in the upper Ganga river basin, according to status report published in January by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and the Upper Ganga Basin Organization under the Central Water Commission.

In October, 2018, the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) took an important step and set minimum environmental flows to be maintained by irrigation, hydropower and industrial projects operating in the upper Ganga basin between the glaciers at the source of the river and Haridwar, and the main stem of the Ganga up to Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.

[Map depicting key projects in the Upper Ganga (image from 2020 report by: DoWR, RD & GR)]

Environment flows (also known as e-flows) set the minimum water flow needed to sustain healthy rivers and ecosystems. This is essential along the Ganga, where sections of the river now runs dry for part of the year due to widespread dam building and diversions, and what water remains is highly polluted.

But experts say that the government standards for e-flows are too low to ensure healthy river system and have raised serious concerns over the transparency and accuracy of data collection and monitoring.

Black listed projects

The 2020 report states that the Maneri Bhali Phase-II hydropower project, the Vishnuprayag and Srinagar hydro-electric projects as well as the Pashulok barrage in Uttarakhand state failed to meet the 15 December, 2019, deadline – which had been pushed back from October 2021.

thethirdpole.net filed a Right To Information request to obtain the report from the Central Water Commission, the designated custodian of the data, but was told the information was not available. We later found the report via google search techniques, such as using the report notification number.

[Source: 2020 report by: DoWR, RD & GR]

“It is concerning that these projects haven’t met environmental flow norms especially considering that the period [in question] is post-monsoon,” said Shripad Dharmadhikary, founder of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, a research centre that analyses water and energy issues in India. This failure in compliance is all the more concerning given that maintaining minimum e-flows during the current quarter ( i.e. Jan-March) is all the more challenging given that flow in this quarter will be much lower until snow melt after April contributes a significant amount of water to the river.

In addition to the four projects that have been categorised as “non-compliant”, the report states that the Maneri Bhali Phase-I project also failed to maintain minimum e-flows for a few days in October, 2019, and that Tehri and Kanpur barrage are not providing data on the mandated hourly basis. When there are gaps like this, “how can you conclude that these projects are compliant?” said Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Murky data

The report also points out that only four of the 11 projects being monitored have installed automatic data systems to monitor e-flows. The original notification clearly stated that “the concerned project developers or authorities will have to install automatic data acquisition and data transmission facilities at appropriate locations at project sites within six months.” And so, this too is a lapse.

Further doubts have arisen over compliance because there has been no independent verification of water flow. The status report is entirely based on a self-reporting mechanism.

There are also concerns over factual errors in the report, which throw the findings further into doubt. Pointing to a description of “Ganga physiography” provided in the report, Thakkar noted that parts of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh also fall within the Ganga basin but the report only mentions Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. “Also, the map [image above] shows Koteshwar [dam] as being upstream of Tehri but Koteshwar is downstream of Tehri,” Thakkar said. “These are glaring mistakes,” he added.

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