NEW DELHI, Aug 31 � Contrary to the common perception, the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) has no role to play in construction of small hydro power projects but comes into the picture only in case of construction of big dams, Minister of State for Water Resources, Vincent H Pala, clarified.
Talking to this newspaper, Pala said only when the length of the dam exceeds 1 km and the height 15 metres, that his Ministry is involved. �We have no role in case of construction of micro and medium � sized hydro power projects.�
The Ministry�s comment comes in the midst of the raging controversy over construction of mega dams in neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh in the upper reaches of Brahmaputra River.
Pala said the Central Water Commission (CWC) is involved in case of construction of big dams.
All major dams are designed based on the site-specific seismic design parameters recommended by the National Committee on Seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP), the
Minister had said in a Lok Sabha reply last week.
The NCSDP comprises experts from various organisations of national repute. Dams, whether small or large, are designed according to relevant guidelines and Indian Standard Code to account for any seismic eventuality, Pala added.
The State Governments of North Eastern Region have allotted a number of hydro power projects to independent power producers and public sector undertakings for execution.
Government of Assam has already been in touch with MoWR. It cited concern expressed by some people that the construction of big dams in upper reaches of the Brahmaputra would affect downstream areas in Assam, confirmed the Minister of State for Water Resources.
Curiously, Government of Assam made no mention about the report by the Expert Panel that triggered the entire controversy.
Meanwhile, BJP Guwahati MP Bijoya Chakravarty moving a Zero Hour Motion in the Lok Sabha urged the Government of India to sanction construction of small dams in the upper reaches instead of big dams.
Big dams are a very dangerous proposition, especially for Assam. The proposed big dams in Lower Subansiri river in Arunachal Pradesh would threaten entire Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, and parts of Tinsukia district.
Environmentalists and geo-scientists are of the opinion that as the North Eastern Region is an earthquake-prone zone, stones of the hills are not mature enough and in the eventuality of earthquake huge dams would be a potential danger, she claimed.
Interestingly, the MoWR doesn�t share the MP�s concern and last week in a Rajya Sabha reply, Pala had said large dams are even safer than small dams because the design and construction requirement of large dams are much more stringent making them more resilient.
Pala said that both the small and large dams are designed using state-of-art design and analysis techniques. However, in the case of large dams, the requirements of planning, design, investigation, data acquisition and construction are much more stringent, as compared to small dams. This makes large dams safer than the small dams, he argued.
Meanwhile, Chakravarty called for declaration of the flood and erosion problem as a national problem. �We have been demanding that the flood in Assam be treated as a national problem. As the dimension of the flood is huge, it is beyond the administrative capacity of the State Government to control flood in Assam.
�Corrupt Assam Government did not use the Central Government�s funds for proper control of flood, she alleged, adding that embankments of rivers are not properly constructed.