Guwahati, March 18: The Peoples’ Forum for Project Affected Families (Lohit river basin), a civil society organisation, has requested Union environment and forest minister Jayanthi Natarajan to stop work on the hydro projects coming up in the river basin unless a comprehensive assessment of impacts of the projects is done.

The forum said the Lohit basin study done by the WAPCOS, a public sector enterprise under the aegis of the Union ministry of water resource, had ignored the social impact of the projects.

“The enterprise also has not done any cumulative study as impact assessment of individual projects is still to be done,” Peoples’ Forum for Project Affected Families (Lohit river basin) chairman Behenso Pul said in the memorandum submitted to the minister a few days back.

There has been a lot of resentment after the ministry gave forest clearance to the 1,750MW Lower Demwe project overruling comments from the National Board for Wildlife.

The ministry had called upon IIT Roorkee to carry out comprehensive impact assessment studies but made it clear that this would not come in the way of construction of the project.

“WAPCOS also does other pro-dam studies like the feasibility reports and detailed project reports and an organisation, which is involved in such business, cannot be entrusted to do an environment or cumulative impact assessment study,” Pul said.

The forum has requested the minister to ensure participatory process at gram sabha level before work on environment impact assessment is started. Moreover, full copies of these studies are available to all gram sabhas in language and manner that people there can understand.

“We would also request you to change the Environment Impact Assessment notification to ensure that projects of capacity greater than 5MW are also required to have an environment management plan, environment clearance and public hearings. Moreover, the practice of taking up front premium (one time non-refundable commitment fee paid by the intending power developer to state government) should be stopped and declared illegal,” the forum said.

Arunachal Pradesh has earned Rs 1,32,031.31 lakh as upfront fee in 2010-2011 from companies who want to set up hydropower projects.

The forum said a democratic process involving all concerned in the state and downstream states should be taken up before any project was to be considered in any other river basin.

“The absence of such a process will only invite social unrest, like the one going on in Assam now,” it said.

The forum also said the construction of the project on the India-China border areas of Arunachal Pradesh would pose serious threats.

“In such a small place when such mega projects are taken up, it will not only destroy our society, culture, villages, forests and river, but create huge political, religious, social and cultural problems for our tiny population,” it said.