A vociferous protest against big dams reaches its crucial stage when union environment minister Jairam Ramesh was greeted with protest as he was arriving in Guwahti for a public hearing on the NHPC owned big dam in Arunachal Pradesh.
As the Union minister started the public hearing at Machkhowa, ITA, hundreds of local organizations and political parties approached him to register stiff protest again the on going construction of the big dam in Gerukamukh by NHPC in the name of the lower Subansiri hydel project. Citing the expert panel report, these parties and organisations have told the minister that the big dam might spell an ecological disaster for the people in down stream areas.
PermalinkSubmitted by Hayang on Wed, 29/09/2010 - 05:16
--Lame Excuse by NHPC CMD S.K. Garg--
Despite strident protests in Assam with environmental concerns over construction of mega dams, National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Chairman-cum-Managing Director S.K. Garg says that the project builders plan to commission three units in March 2012 and the remaining five units by December 2012. This is because Rs 4000 crore of the Rs 9000 crore project has been utilized. That means 40% of the expenses have been made. But is this a reason enough to sacrifice environment and the population of downstream areas which cannot be compensated even if the Indian central government bring all the riches in the world. When land is lost, existence is lost. When existence is lost, the very right to our natural habitat is lost.
In the devastating floods caused by the Tehri dam in Uttarakhand, the central government has promised a package of Rs 500 crore to the state government. That means every year there will be floods, the Indian government will dole out Rs 500 crore. So, within 8 years, Rs 4000 crore will have to be shelved out. If this is the economics involved, Rs 4000 crore is nothing for a rich country like India where many politicians and ministers have pocketed hundreds and thousands of crores. So, the justification of Rs 4000 crore by S.K. Garg sounds to be a lame excuse to keep the industrial corporations who fund the elections happy and satisfied.
21 Nov 2014 - 6:40am | AT News
President Pranab Mukherjee stressed value based education that shapes the destiny of a nation mired in poverty, social disorder and economic malaise. In his address at the 12th Convocation of...
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NDFB’s pro talks faction threatens to pull out of the peace process if the Centre fails to halt operation against their cadres. In a press statement sent to media on Saturday, the outfit’...
23 Jun 2012 - 12:08am | editor
Three including two minor boys were buried alive in yet another incident of landslide that struck at a hillock in Guwahati on Friday. The incident took place at Lalunggaon in Gorchuk in the wee hours...
4 May 2009 - 1:27pm | editor
Good news. Altogether eight candidates from Assam have cleared the Civil Service Examination, 2008 conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. The Commission has already announced the results...
More trouble awaits NHPC. Yet another social activist ups his ante on the power giant alleging flouting of norms laid down by the ministry of forest and environment and the Brahmaputra Board. Releasing RTI documents the social activist JN Khatoniar said that NHPC has spent a huge Rs 7000 crore since 2004 in the name of the Gerukamukh-based project. Khatoniar alleged that the state sector power giant mislead the people with false advertisements in media. “In media advertisement, NHPC claimed to have secured statutory and regulatory clearances for the project from ten bodies. These included Ministries of Environment and Forest as well as Power, the Brahmaputra Board, Central Water...
Assam is in the grip of a severe power crisis which cripples normal life across the state. This is following the reduced generation of power by hydel and thermal power stations in the state. According to official sources, the state is facing a shortage of 403 MW of power with the peak load hour power demand being 1100 MW as against the available 497 MW.
The problem has been further compounded with the damage of transmission towers due to storm on the night of May two in Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal that supplies 300 MW power to Assam. The scene is expected to improve within a couple of days as work was going on to restore the transmission towers though the gap between the demand and...
The owner and pilot of the double-decker ferry that capsized on April 30 in the Bramhaputra river in Assam's Dhubri district have been arrested as one more body was recovered on Tuesday. Owner of the ferry Syed Ali Bepari and pilot Golabuddin, ticket checker Syed ur Rahman and helper Shah Alam Sheikh have been arrested on the charge of plying the ferry after expiry of its licence.
Meanwhile, with search continuing since the mishap, one more body was fished out today, taking the official count of bodies recovered so far to 40. The body was found from Patakata, downstream from the accident site, and close to Indo-Bangladesh border.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday called on several UPA heavyweights in Delhi amid speculations of an impending cabinet reshuffle. Gogoi met Union finance minister Prabnab Mukherjee and discussed the state’s financial health. Before that he met defence minister AK Antony and home minister P Chidambaram where he discussed the state’s law and order. On Monday, he called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi a day after he attended the chief minister’s conference on NCTC.
The All Assam Tai Ahom Students Union on Tuesday called off its 36-hour Assam Bandh called in protest against the killing of its leader in Sivasagar district affecting normal life.
Incidents of road blockade, stone pelting, burning of tyres and damage of vehicles by bandh supporters were reported from different parts of Jorhat, Golaghat, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Lakhimpur districts.
Several other students' organisations of the state, including Tai Ahom Yuva Chatra Parishad, Adivasi Student Association, Koch Rajbongshi Students Union, Chutiya Students Union, among others, have extended their support to the bandh ending on Wednesday morning.
The other 36-hour Assam bandh...
The National Symposium on High Performance Computing was held at Assam Engineering College, Guwahati on May 5, 2012 was aimed at creating awareness on HPC and its potential benefits in academia and industry. The technical sessions by expert speakers in various engineering domains provided a perfect incubation platform for faculties, engineers and researchers to indulge in advance research using HPC.
High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of parallel processing for running computationally intensive application programs efficiently and reliably. It is considered synonymous with the term supercomputing. Research on HPC started in the late 1970s and has gained importance in recent times...
Normal life in Sivasagar has been thrown out of gear under the impact of the 24-hour bandh call by AATASU on Saturday. Roads across the district wore deserted look, schools and colleges,shops and markets remained closed under the impact of the bandh. Government offices and banks witnessed thin attendance. The All Assam Tai Ahom Students union called for the 24 hour bandh in protest against the killing of Debojeet Lahon by a gang of miscreants in Sivasagar on Thursday.
A mild tremor jolted the entire upper Assam on Saturday creating panic among the people. The tremor shook Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Jorhat, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji district at 1.39 am. The earthquake was of 4.4 magnitude in Rickhtar scale and the epicentre was the Assam -. Arunachal Pradesh border. This is the second quake to have struck Assam in the last 10 days.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday said that unemployment is the biggest problem facing Assam and imparting modern skill to youths can eradicate it to a large extent.Addressing a function in Guwahati on Friday, Gogoi said that lack of expertise among our youths means that Assam has to bring even semi-skilled workers from other states for working in major projects like Gas Cracker in Lepetkata.He said that the state government is planning to upgrade ITIs and all such centres within the 12th Plan period. The target is to get over the problem of skill shortage within the next five years, he said.Industry and Commerce Minister Pradyut Bordoloi said that the government is planning to set up...
Assam has every reasons to cheer. Altogether five candidates from the state have been declared to have passed the Indian Administrative Service Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.The results have been announced on Friday. The five candidates hailing from Assam are Dhrubashis Deka, Satyakam Dutta, Priyanka Das, Mukesh Pandey and Ananya Saikia.
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