Despite repeated suggestions to halt the mega dam work by north east dam experts, NHPC and the Centre have categorically allayed the fear of downstream disaster of the controversial dam at Gerukamukh. Yet another expert panel is studying the entire issue of downstream impact of the NHPC-owned power project. That is what it in the case of Assam.
But the Centre itself has held hydropower projects responsible for the Uttarakhand disaster last year that left hundreds dead and thousand displaced. The situation aggravated in the upstream and downstream areas of the projects. The Centre admitted it in the recent affidavits of the MoFE before the Supreme Court on Monday.
This has forced the Centre to stall 24 of the 39 proposed projects in the state on the sub-basins of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers.
According to the MoEF said that construction of the projects overburdened the local ecology. This has resulted in the irreversible damage to the environment in terms of loss of forests, degraded water quality, and an enhanced impact of landslides.
It suggests the impending downstream disaster of the Gerukamukh mega dams in Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts. Will power minister Piyush Goel and the NHPC go through the affidavits before resuming the mega dam works in Gerukamukh? If NHPC is allowed to resume works, will they own up responsiblity for the impending danger in the downstream areas?
Anti-dam protesters have been crying the fear of disaster for the last three years. But NHPC and the Centre have been trying to ignore the voice of protest against and again. A circle of experts hired by NHPC has been supporting the mega dams in the name of power generation. But some others have been dead opposed to it. Need of the hour is to give a second thought to it. People in this seismic prone region don’t want yet another trail of devastation.
30 Oct 2011 - 3:24pm | Jayanta Kumar Das
The silver jubilee celebration of Kalaigaon College has begun on October 28 at Kalaigaon and will continue till October 30.Hoisting of college flag by Arabinda Das,Principal,Kalaigaon College and...
18 Oct 2012 - 2:17am | Ranjan K Baruah
In connection to the 50% cut off mark for the secondary Teachers Eligibility Test (TET) examination to be held on February, 2013 tentatively, All Bodo Students Union (ABSU) is not against the TET...
1 Aug 2008 - 6:48pm | Nanda Kirati Dewan
With barely two weeks to embrace 62nd independence day, this correspondent today visited the Lokpriya Gopinath International Airport in order to take note of security system in the airport in the...
9 Dec 2017 - 8:12pm | Akshaya Pranab Kalita
NAMRUP: The security forces claimed to have captured a dreaded ULFA-I rebel in Charaideo district on Saturday. Acting on a tip off police and Dao division Army jawans conducted a combing operation...
The Assam government has set up a group of ministers to look into the issue of inclusion of erosion as an eligible calamity for relief under National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) or State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF).Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi conveyed to Union Minister of Agriculture & Food Processing Industries Sharad Pawar recently.Gogoi wrote a letter to Pawar requesting him to include river bank erosion in the list of eligible natural calamities for assistance from NDRF/SDRF.The GOM is being serviced by Ministry of Home Affairs.
ULFA general secretary Anup Chetia’s extradition is imminent. Union home minister has left for Dhaka on Monday where is set to sign the extradition treaty. The treaty will be signed during the home minister's visit to Bangladesh on Monday.The extradition treaty will pave the way for deportation of jailed ULFA 'general secretary' Anup Chetia, Tripura insurgent leader Vishwa Mohan Deb Barman, NDFB leader Thulunga alias Tensu Narzery and many other insurgents from the northeast who have been hiding in Bangladesh.New Delhi has been mounting pressure on Dhaka for Chetia's deportation since long. The ULFA leader has been in a Dhaka jail following his arrest in 1997 on the charge of entering...
Properties worth Rs 1 crore has been reduced to ashes when a major fire broke out in Nalbari town on Monday. The fire broke out at a garment shop because of an electric short circuit in the wee hours which later engulfed the adjacent shops. Five fire tenders took several hours to douse the fire.Similarly, a devastating fire broke in Lakhimpur town on Monday damaging goods worth several lakhs in the morning.
The local businessman injured in the shocking shoot out in Dhubri is battling for life on Monday. Police have yet to nab the miscreants involved in the incident that rocked the district hours after the post Republic Day. The incident took place in Gauripur when unidentified miscreants started indiscriminate firing at Daschok at around 7-30 in the evening.Gauripur police rushed to the spot and the local residents admitted the businessman to the hospital. But the miscreants managed to flee from the spot.
Guwahati police claimed to have arrested a gang of notorious kidnappers I connection with the kidnap of a Guwahati-based hotelier’s son two months ago.Police on Saturday night arrested five persons including a woman from Silchar who kidnapped the son of a businessman from Sonapur in November and demanded Rs 1 crore for safe release. Later they freed the boy for Rs 50 lakh as ransom. The women prepared the entire blueprint. Interrogation is going on at Panbazar police station.
Anti-big dam protest will take an aggressive turn as NHPC resumes construction of the projects at Gerukamukh. Addresng a press conference in Guwahati n Sunday, KMSS and AJYCP and TMPK have threatened to resume massive agitation if the works are not stopped immediately.KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi said that NHPC has gone back to its promises six months after it promised to stop working. Miffed at these development, the three organizations are preparing to go all out against it.
Defying the diktat of separatist militants in northeast India, the media fraternity of the city has celebrated the 64th Republic Day of India at Guwahati Press Club. Following the tradition, the media persons and other patriotic citizens had assembled in the campus of the pioneer press club of the region in the morning today and hoisted the national flag. Social worker and a former legislator of Assam, Ajay Dutta unfurled the tricolor in presence of the media persons and paid his heartfelt tributes to the martyrs of India’s Freedom movement.In his brief speech, Dutta remembered the contribution of thousands of martyrs for their sacrifices which finally brought the freedom to India. He paid...
The Delhi government has agreed to set up a statute of Chaolung Sukapha in the national capital. The assurance came from Delhi Chief minister Sheila Dixit who talked to her Assam counterpart Tarun Gogoi. Before that Gogoi in a letter requested Dixit to consider the proposal to set up the first Ahom king in the national capital. The initiative assumes significance after the government invited unprecedented criticism for not giving due status to the Ahom king.
Local residents in Goalpara district beat him a suspected militant to death on Saturday night. Three motorcycles suspected to have been used by the militants were recovered from the area.One bomb is suspected to be concealed in the MLA's house and a bomb disposal squad of the police reached the place, they added. Another IED went off at Jaleshwar High School. The other explosions in Goalpara district took place at Moriakichi Bazar, Gaurnagar, Porahita and Jamadar Bazar areas. In Dhubri, the areas hit by the blasts are Airketa, Sirajkuthi and Metarteri.
A series of low intensity blasts has forced the security forces to fan in lower Assam on Sunday. Suspected ULFA militants on Saturday night set off eight IED blasts in a space of 90 minutes targeting the house of an AIDUF MLA and crowded markets in Goalpara and Dhubri districts. There, is, however, no report of casualty.ULFA, along with some other insurgents group, gave a call for boycotting the Republic Day celebrations. The first blast took place inside the residential complex of Moinuddin Ahmed, MLA of All India Democratic United Front, at Jaleshwar in Goalpara district.
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