Fresh protest erupted on Friday against the deployment of central and state police forces in three Siang districts to conduct the pre-feasibility survey of the proposed 11,000-MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project in Arunachal Pradesh.
Several hundred project-affected people and activists launched an indefinite dharna at Beging village in Siang district in protest amid imposition of prohibitory orders and heavy security. Protest rally was also held at Yingkiong in Upper Siang.
At both places, people were stopped from going to the project sites, resulting in “peaceful” jostling with security personnel as people tried to get their way past the barricades, sources said.
Nith Paron from the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum’s (SIFF) youth wing said they do not want the dam because they will become refugees in their own land and they want the immediate withdrawal of the security forces which has been deployed in Beging, Geku, Yingkiong and Boleng, areas falling under Siang, Upper siang and
East Saiang districts.
“We will continue with our peaceful dharna. Today, we had about 700 people from 27 villages which will be affected by the mega project,” Paron said in Beging, the dam survey site, on Friday. However, they were not allowed to proceed to the actual site, he added.
A statement issued by the project affected families under the banner of the SIFF on Thursday night said: “We inform to you in great distress and urgent notice that Central Armed Police Force have been deployed in Beging, Geku, Jengging and all three district headquarters Pasighat (East Siang), Boleng (Siang) and Yingkiong (Upper Siang), Arunachal Pradesh, for assisting National Hydro Electric Power Corporation (NHPC) officials to conduct a pre- feasibility report for the proposed 11,500-MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project.”
The proposed dam is being set up under the NHPC with chief minister Pema Khandu asserting that the project would, among others, help check the threat posed by the 60,000-MW dam being built on the upper reaches of Siang river in China.
The state government has shortlisted three sites — Parong, Ugeng and Dite Dime – along the Siang, which is known as Yarlung Tsangpo in China.
The SIFF said the project affected families have been opposing the proposed dam since the 1980s and that they “never consented for the survey”.
“We highly condemn this arbitrary abuse of power which has profoundly hurt and violated our sentiments and rights for which we seek immediate intervention and remedy from concerned government authorities and civil society organizations,” the SIFF said.
Prohibitory orders were imposed on Thursday.
There were protests in December last year against the government’s move to deploy central and police forces in three Siang districts to check any hurdle against the pre-feasibility survey for the mega project, delaying the deployment. Organised by the SIFF, activists and environmental organisations stuck to their “No Dam, No Survey” stand.
The protesters had also submitted a memorandum to the ministry of home affairs, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, home minister, chief secretary and the home secretary on Sunday, protesting the pre-feasibility survey and deployment of the CAPF in the Siang region.
Later in December, during a tour to Boleng in Siang district, chief minister Pema Khandu tried to convince the local populace for supporting the project of “national importance”.
The project, Khandu said, will secure the future of the Siang river and the Adi community that inhabits the area to be impacted by the project, Khandu had said, or be prepared to face the risks posed by the world’s largest dam to be built upstream by China.
The locals fear the project would lead to displacement and ecological threat. “If you don’t want a dam, if you don’t want a hydropower project, there won’t be. Chapter closed,” Khandu had assured but there has been renewed push to go ahead with the project with the deployment of security forces to conduct the survey but there has been no shift in the no-dam stand of those against the project.
