Site of the Subansiri Dam

In the idyllic surroundings of Gerukamukh, a grim battle is being fought. Never before have officials and engineers of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) encountered such heavy odds in generating power, which is its business.

Ask the Brahmaputra Board. They had started work on the project in 1982 but abandoned it after spending crores of rupees as it could not muster the requisite expertise.

?The bottlenecks are understandable,? says Subhash Roy, general manager of Subansiri Lower Hydel Power Project, gamely ?when the target is to generate 2,000 MW of electricity.? The site of the project, Gerukamukh village, 471 km from Guwahati in Dhemaji district, lies along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border, where the NHPC is constructing the ?largest hydro electric project? in Asia on the Subansiri river, which is one of the principal tributaries of the Brahmaputra.

The NHPC has had to face opposition of all sorts, like demands for jobs and contracts for the locals, overall adverse law and order situation in the isolated area, environmentalists of both the genuine and pseudo variety.

?But we shall overcome,? said Roy, ?No matter how big the odds are.? They were now waiting for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to lay the foundation stone of the 116-meter high proposed concrete dam with a surface powerhouse of 2,000 MW capacity, in the first week of November.

For the past 24 years, the Subansiri project has been mired in controversies, debates and protests. Now the NHPC is creating the infrastructure ? roads and bridges, schools, dwellings.

Originally, the planners had conceived construction of two large dams on Siang and Subansiri rivers by the Brahmaputra Board. Detailed project reports (DPR) after conducting detailed survey and investigation of the two projects, Subansiri Dam Project (4,800 MW) and Dihang (Siang) Dam Project (2,000 MW) were prepared by the Brahmaputra Board in 1983. But these could not taken up for execution because of objections from the Arunachal Pradesh government, which feared submergence of large areas, including some important towns.

To avoid large submergence, cascade development of the hydro potential of Subansiri and Siang river basins in three stages was proposed. The Brahmaputra Board had started fresh survey and investigations to prepare the detailed project report.

But on persuasion of the Arunachal Pradesh government, New Delhi handed over the projects on Subansiri and Siang rivers to NHPC for survey and investigation and subsequent construction and operation. Accordingly, the Subansiri basin has now Subansiri Lower Project at Gerukamukh (2,000 MW), Subansiri middle project at Tamen (1,600 MW) and Subansiri Upper Project at Menga (2,000 MW).

The NHPC, on its part, said after conducting studies with the help of experts, it has been found that the major chunk of submergence area is secondary forest. The primary forest has already been lost to human interference and other natural factors. Moreover, the NHPC has already paid more than Rs 89 crore to the forest departments of both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh for undertaking compensatory afforestation scheme against the loss of forest land.

On the elephant corridor, the NHPC said many years ago herds of jumbos used to cross the Subansiri river only to the areas which are quite below the main project area. There was a high power committee of the Assam government to assess the impact of the project on such migration. They, too, have recommended the project after carrying out studies.

The Subansiri forms one of its largest sub-basins of the Brahmaputra. It is sustained by snowmelt run-off, the ablation of glaciers and monsoon rainfall. The Subansiri originates in Tibet beyond the Greater Himalayan ranges at an altitude of 5,340 m, then flows west before cutting through the Greater Himalayan ranges on the Indo-Tibet border and taking a southeasterly course as it descends along the Lesser Himalayan ranges.

After traversing the Miri hills of the outer Himalayan zone (the Shivalik foothills), the Subansiri enters the Brahmaputra plains at Dulangmukh.

A major portion of the river?s catchment in Tibet and some areas in India lie above the snowline. Several glaciers form part of its catchment and hydrological system.

The Lower Subansiri Project proposes to harness the hydel potential of the lower reaches of the Subansiri river. The left bank of the dam will be in Assam and the right bank of the dam, the powerhouse and most of the submergence, will be in Arunachal Pradesh.

The proposed dam site is 2.3 km upstream of Gerukamukh village, around 70 km from North Lakhimpur. The total requirement of forest land for the project is 4,039.30 hectares, out of which 3,183 hectares are in Arunachal Pradesh and 856.3 hectares in Assam.

Roy said the NHPC has also plans to turn Gerukamukh into a tourist spot. The site is already a picnic spot and the creation of reservoir during the execution of the hydel power project.

Life at Gerukamukh, which is otherwise a sleepy village far away from the madding crowd and where modernity was once misnomer, is slowly taking on a different look. An NHPC engineer who came to the site four years ago said it was difficult for him to stay at the place for the first two years.

?There was nothing. Once I asked a villager whether Britannia biscuits were available. He asked me what that was. But now villagers deal in Coca Cola and use cellphones,? he said.

Roy said the Subansiri project would not only generate power but also economic activities. Local contractors of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh are being allotted with all the works in the project, he claimed.

The 16-km road leading to the site from Gogamukh has been improved and the construction of several bridges were in progress. A telephone exchange of BSNL is already functioning and a State Bank of India branch and post office are being set up at the site. There is no denying the fact that questioning of faulty project planning is sometimes countered with allegations of being ?anti-development?. But at the same time the Northeast does need to move towards becoming a self-reliant economy and the country does need to meet its legitimate power needs. Once the Lower Subansiri project becomes a reality, the Northeast will not only become self-sufficient in power generation but can also sell power outside the region. The NHPC will give 12 per cent free power as royalty to both Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.