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Big Dam on Source of the Ganges Proceeds Despite Earthquake Fear

Big Dam on Source of the Ganges Proceeds Despite Earthquake Fear
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September 18, 1990, Section C, Page 4Buy Reprints
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ABOUT 50 miles north of this holy city on the Ganges in the foothills of the Himalayas, Indian and Soviet engineers have begun work on one of the world's highest dams.

The dam's builders say the project would be ''the savior of the region,'' with major benefits for agriculture and industry, but some scientists and environmental groups warn of an almost certain future disaster, in the form of an earthquake-spawned flood, if the dam is built. Opponents have marshaled an additional list of economic, social and ecological arguments against the dam.

The builder of the 850-foot-high dam is the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation. It is a joint venture between the federal Government and Uttar Pradesh.

In a position paper intended to answer critics' charges, the corporation says the dam would not only provide needed electrical energy for a poor state, but also irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and create a lake large enough to sustain a fishing industry and recreational facilities. Drinking water could be piped to New Delhi, which faces shortages.

''In recent years,'' the corporation says, ''there has been a growing pressure by the environmentalists to safeguard the ecological balance. Many times, however, in their zeal to preserve the environment, they tend to ignore the naked reality that in a profound way poverty is itself the greatest polluter. Economic development is quite essential for reducing poverty.''

Indian opponents of the dam are seeking the support of their Soviet counterparts in trying to stop the project. A demonstration is planned next Friday at the dam site on the Bhagirathi River, the major source of the Ganges.

''If this dam breaks, a wall of water 600 feet high will come down over Rishikesh,'' an Indian official said, reflecting a division of opinion on the dam within the Government. Some Soviet engineers are also skeptical, Indian ecologists say.

In January, a month after taking office, Prime Minister V. P. Singh promised to review the project, which he inherited from his predecessor, Rajiv Gandhi. But a committee of experts has yet to be formed, and preliminary work goes on at the site.

Near a Major Fault

The most dramatic argument by scientists and engineers who oppose building the dam, near the town of Tehri, is that Tehri is likely to suffer a major earthquake sooner or later because it is in the still-active Himalayan belt, where young mountains continue to grow and the earth's crust is unstable.

N. S. Jayal, director for natural heritage at the independent Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage in New Delhi, said in an interview that Tehri is very near the main Himalayan fault line, where earthquakes of extremely high magnitude have occurred in this century - 8.6 on the Richter scale at Kangra, to the west, in 1904; 8.4 in Nepal and northern Bihar in 1934, and 8.7 in the Indian Northeast in 1950.

Tehri, said Mr. Jayal, a former Environment Ministry official and member of the national Planning Commission, is ''right in the middle of a seismic gap where pressure is building up and an earthquake has to come.''

He said that several important building specifications intended to withstand earth tremors at that site did not meet the internationally recognized safety criteria set by an American seismologist, James N. Brune of the University of Nevada at Reno.

Downstream of the dam are Rishikesh and Haridwar, two of India's holiest cities, where pilgrims come to bathe and worship by the river Indians call Ganga.

Apart from the danger of the dam collapsing, Mr. Jayal said, ''it destroys a river that is part of India's culture.''

Changing a Holy River

''The Ganga is the holiest of holy rivers,'' he said. ''People walk for hundreds of miles carrying its waters away in little brass pots. Its purity even scientists cannot explain. Its waters, coming from the glaciers, must have some minerals with purifying properties. If you dam and stagnate the water, that is finished.'' Upstream, the waters from the proposed dam would submerge not only the town of Tehri, but nearly 100 other villages. Other hamlets clinging to deforested hillsides would face the threat of landslides as waters seep into steep, denuded slopes, dam opponents say.

An additional hazard, Indian ecologists say, is that because the many feeder streams and rivers behind the dam originate in Himalayan glaciers, their waters carry a large amount of silt and rock as they tumble down toward the plains. This would quickly back up behind the dam, they say.

India has suffered a series of dam disasters over the last century in which thousands have died. Many believe these disasters, along with evidence that promised economic benefits did not materialize, should serve as warnings against hasty construction.

More generally, Indian environmental groups ask why such large dams - a leftover of independent India's early penchant for huge industrial and power projects, often built with Soviet assistance - should be considered relevant when there are more cost-effective, less disruptive alternatives. Many Indians also oppose the huge dams being constructed along the Narmada River in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

The impending dislocation of more than 85,000 people from areas to be flooded by the Tehri dam has fostered a strong local protest movement in the Garhwal Himalaya, as this region west of Nepal is known. The movement has produced a local hero, Sunderlal Bahuguna, of the Chipko, or ''hug a tree,'' organization. His hunger strike early this year caught the attention of the new Government of Mr. Singh.

A Decade in Court

A local case challenging the dam, which has been on the drawing boards for decades, went to the Supreme Court more than 10 years ago, where it is still awaiting action.

Opponents point out that a leading supporter of the dam is Mulayam Singh Yadav, a member of the Prime Minister's party and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state in which Tehri is located. Uttar Pradesh would be the first to benefit from the power and water supplies. When completed, the dam is expected to produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity.

Maneka Gandhi, Prime Minister Singh's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, opposed the dam and held up work for several months before being sidelined by the appointment of a minister who outranks her and views the project more favorably.

An official in the Environment Ministry described Mrs. Gandhi, who is popular with environmental groups, as ''out of the picture now.'' He said that since more than $260 million had already been spent on the dam project, it was unlikely to be canceled.

''Once having constructed one or two major dams, you build up a bureaucracy,'' said Mr. Jayal of the Indian National Trust. ''You have engineers by the dozen appointed. They have to remain in service. They have to keep making their pile of money. So what do they do? They go from making one dam to the next dam, whether it's needed or not.''

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: Big Dam on Source of the Ganges Proceeds Despite Earthquake Fear. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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