NEW DELHI: It's clear that the devastation caused by the flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand was at least in part due to environmental degradation of fragile mountain slopes and reckless commercialization. Yet, weeks before the calamity state CM Vijay Bahuguna had railed against "environmentalists" and "Green Statutes" for hampering development work during a May 23 meeting in Delhi with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Plan deputy chair, to finalize the state's annual plan.
Ahluwalia while calling for more private-sector participation to help develop tourism- infrastructure reportedly admitted that green issues did impede development. The CM's presentation was anti-"Green Statutes (Forest Conservation Act, Indian Forest Act, Wildlife Conservation Act etc.)" that "impede the development of Green Surplus States."
The CM's presentation claimed the state's economy will be seriously affected by the Uttarkashi-Gangotri eco-sensitive zone being notified recently putting a ban on hydro-projects of capacity of more than 2 MW. The Uttarkashi-Gangotri zone was notified in December last preventing dam building, construction activity and damage around a 100-km stretch of the Bhagirathi flowing between its origin at Gaumukh and Uttarkashi. This high altitude region was devastated in the recent calamity.
Evidencing the short-sighted thinking that contributed to the present tragedy, the CM said that cost of building a road in Uttarakhand goes up by Rs12.40 lacs per kilometer because of various environmental rules including payment of net present value (NPV) of forest (Rs.5.4 lakh), compensatory afforestation (Rs.1 lakh), muck disposal (Rs.5 lakh) and roadside plantation (Rs.1 lakh).
Flouting of these very norms is what led to debris from hydel projects and roads to be dumped in river-beds causing flooding and instability in slopes cut by roads because of the absence of protective plantations. "Why burden a green surplus state with these levies and inflate the per km cost by 27 %?" asked Bahuguna, who clearly believes such "environmental" shackles should be done away with.
Bahuguna's presentation reserved its most cutting criticism for the Centre's ministry of environment and forests for "declaring large areas as no-development zones, suspension of major hydel projects on environmental grounds and indiscriminate delays and large pendency of forest land transfer cases of roads, drinking water," etc.
Taking a different tack, the CM in the presentation also suddenly expressed deep concern at "environmental pollution, global warming and climate change" caused by thermal power plants, in order to push the case for "clean green energy" generated by hydro-power. It was alleged in the presentation that the MoEF "is continuously blocking all our efforts to realize our true hydro power potential by its actions like unilateral declaration of Eco-Sensitive Zone".
