A hydel project that will submerge another

These days one scam is weirder than the previous one. But this one will take the cake—here we have a dam that, if implemented, will submerge the tail of another upstream mini-hydel project.

The mini-hydel project in question is the 24MW Kukke Stage I project. Once commissioned, it will submerge the tail of an already operational 4.8 MW Hosamatha MHS (mini-hydel scheme) on the Kumaradhara river in Dakshin Kannada district.

Authorities of the Hosamatha MHS have also submitted their opposition to the Kukke Stage I to the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd (KREDL), the state government body whose sanction is required before the project can be undertaken.

In fact, KREDL, the nodal agency of the Karnataka power ministry, issued a ‘stop work notice’ on February 25 following complaints by the Kumardhara Urumbi Anekattu Virodhi Horata Samiti and the Hosamatha MHS. That’s where things lie now. That’s also about a bundle of lies, argue environmental activists.

The fact that the proposed project would literally flood out another one was known when the project design document (PDD) was drawn up. The South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), which conducted a fact-finding visit to the project area and has compiled a comprehensive dossier on the project, believes that not including this aspect in the project proponent of the PDD is a breach of transparent practices.

“Not having done is an attempt to mislead the UNFCCC and the public. All this clearly shows that the project is unsustainable and faces huge local protests and does not qualify to receive carbon credits under the UNFCCC,” says Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP.

That’s what this scam is about: carbon credits from the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the UNFCCC. And, of course, that will finally translate into money.

The exhaustive report on the Kukke project compiled by Parineeta Dandekar of SANDRP, in fact, shows the haphazard and cavalier manner in which mini-hydel projects are being planned and executed by the state government in the ecologically-sensitive Western Ghats region.

The Kumaradhara river alone has 12 approved small hydro projects, while the bigger Netravathi river basin (of which Kumardhara is a part) has 44 approved projects already. Dakshin Kannada district (where Kukke I is situated) has till date 108 companies with an equal number of approved projects, according to the KREDL website. Greenko, the parent company behind Kukke Hydro Projects Pvt Ltd which is constructing Kukke Stage I, alone has five approved projects on the Kumaradhara and Netravathi rivers with a projected total capacity of 636 MW. The project involves no new technology, no new measures to make it more environment or society-friendly, according to SANDRP.

The Western Ghats landscape, particularly in Karnataka, is littered with mini-hydel projects in various stages of implementation (from conceptualisation to commissioning). This is where another catch lies—according to the EIA notification of September 2006, these projects are legally exempt from environment impact assessment, environmental clearance, public hearing and implementing an environment management plan and environmental monitoring. The Kukke dam is one such project.

The Kukke case is a documentation of how laws are being flouted flagrantly—by touting lies.

The PDD of the project says, “All stakeholders have issued their approval /consents/ licences for setting up the project.” Submissions made on the UNFCCC by these same stakeholders (read, people), however, suggest otherwise.

The project, which has an MWL (maximum water level) of 74 masl (metres above sea level) as declared in its detailed project report (DPR), will affect seven villages along the Kumaradhara river in the upstream of the project. Moreover, the backwater effect will lead to even higher water levels upstream at the dam site during monsoon. Worse, this region is flood-prone, and backwater impacts have not even been assessed.

The Kumardhara Urumbi Anekattu Virodhi Horata Samiti, in its submission to UNFCCC, says that they were kept in the dark about this aspect. The same goes for the possible submergence of Hosamatha MHS.

That’s not where it ends. The PDD claims, “The scheme is run-off-river based and does not involve submergence of land or rehabilitation activity.” On the other hand, the DPR of the same project itself states that “there will be minimum submergence of cultivated land.” How much? Villagers contend the project will submerge a minimum of 297 acres of forests and 400 acres of agricultural lands.

There are other misleading aspects too. The company had claimed in its PDD that “the project shall not affect the aquatic life available in this stream, which at present is insignificant.” What the document had ignored was that the Kumaradhara river has one of the highest endangered fish populations in the Western Ghats. One study had identified 56 different fish species here, of which 23 are endemics, 11 are vulnerable and eight are endangered as per IUCN and feature in Red List of Threatened Species .

The KREDL had indeed asked the Kukke Hydro Projects Pvt Ltd to conduct a detailed survey of the entire project site with submergence land details and submit a report with “land owners’ consent to process for further execution of the agreement.” That was in the first week of February. Close to four months now, the silence on part of the project proponent has been deafening.

As of now, the fate of seven villages hangs by a thin thread. As does that of the Hosamatha project.