Posted Date : Sun, 2012-02-26 13:31
MoEF, which holds the mandate of safeguarding country's environment, has given a completely unjustifiable wildlife clearance to the 1750 MW Demwe Lower Hydroelectric dam on the Lohit river in Arunachal Pradesh (http://www.moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/Demwe_Lower_Hydroelectric_project.pdf), in face of severe opposition from civil society, experts across country and all the independent members of National Board for Wildlife. This shocking decision has come at the heels of one more such clearance given by MoEF to 300 MW Alkananda project in Uttarakhand, which has been rejected twice by FAC and given a negative recommendation by WII.
Guest Post : Parineeta Dandekar and Himanshu Thakkar
With decisions like these, MoEF is proving that it is incapable to stand up against the tools used by the hydropower lobby even when overwhelming evidence points that impacts are unacceptably severe and even if some of the most threatened ecosystems are about to be destroyed.
The Demwe Lower project is the last dam on the Lohit river mainstem, which already has 12 dams planned on the entire river.
