They need little land to build this dam

The age of the sublime as far as projects in Karnataka are concerned is long over—it’s the age of the ridiculous now.

The contractor for a mini-hydel project in the ecologically-sensitive Western Ghats has already started constructing the dam on one side of the river even though land on the other side has not yet been acquired.

The project in question is the 12.5 MW Sahasralingeshwara (Nekkiladi) project on the Kumaradhara river in Dakshin Kannada district.

The Nekkiladi minihydel project, on paper at least, is supposed to be all about clean energy. In other words, it has applied for precious CDM (clean development mechanism) credits with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

On the face of it, everything is a fait accompli—the company, Bangalore-based Soham, has started work on the project on one side of the Kumaradhara river. Land on the other side, however, is yet to be acquired.

This is not the only problem with the Nekkiladi project, a fact-finding team from the Delhi-headquartered South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has found.

There are, in fact, many others. The project proponent (Soham) was contacted by email but the queries from DNA went unanswered.

“The 12.5 MW Nekkiladi MHS is a clearly non-additional, unsustainable project with serious ecological and social impacts. It is coming up in a most undemocratic, non-participatory way in face of huge local protests,” said Parineeta Dandekar of SANDRP.

“The company has till date not shared any details of the area of forest land, farmland and plantations which will be submerged, nor has it conducted a Rapid EIA. Nor does it intend to share any of the certified emission reductions (CER) received for social activities. It will be affecting biodiversity in a region which has been designated as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.

Considering all these serious issues, the UNFCCC should not issue carbon credits to the MHS,” Dandekar remarked.
The project has been facing opposition from farmers in Puttur region. Protests have been organised in the area because of the exceedingly non-transparent behaviour of the project proponent. Soham has not provided any information about the area of land that will be submerged by the project. The land behind the dam wall consists of valuable areca nut plantations and Western Ghats forests.

“Land acquisition itself has not been done in Nekkiladi grampanchyat on the left bank of the river to build the dam wall. It is shocking to see the proponent approaching the UNFCCC for carbon credits to a project which has not even succeeded in acquiring requisite land for completing the dam wall,” said Himanshu Thakkar, also of SANDRP.

The report stitched together by the fact-finding team says the company has actually started construction of the dam without any statutory permission in place, not even the ‘no objection certificates’ from local gram panchayats (Hirebandady and Nekkilady grampanchyats). The villagers have opposed giving an NOC to the project.

The Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited (KREDL) has sanctioned 108 mini-hydel projects in Dakshin Kannada district alone, most of which fall in Netravathi-Kumaradhara basins with a projected total capacity of 636 MW. There are eight commissioned/under construction and planned small hydel projects, upstream of Nekkiladi MHS, and three commissioned small hydel projects downstream.

For a project which is being constructed in an ecologically fragile area, surprisingly, the PDD (project design document) does not talk of a single environmental impact. This is significant since Nekkiladi MHS will dam the Kumaradhara, which is home to highest number of endemic fish species. A study identified 56 different fish species in the river, of which 23 are endemic, 11 vulnerable and eight endangered according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The islands on the river are habitat to a number of bird species.

Moreover, the proposed dam site is barely 500m upstream of a weir and pumphouse which supplies water to Puttur town (which has a population of 5,200). If the MHS holds back water for generating peaking power, the water supply to the town may be affected.

One of the major issues at hand is sustainable development. The PDD says, “The project activity would bring foreign revenues to an Indian company (project proponent), as sale proceeds of CERs.” Dandekar believes this is a highly erroneous statement.

“The project proponent is an economically powerful company. The additional CERs received by the company will only add to its private profit and not to sustainable development. Increasing the private profits of a corporate entity is not the objective of CDM process.”