New Delhi: As the sinking of Joshimath unfolds in the Himalaya, the “real issue” has always been about ensuring that development goes together with environmental sustainability, Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change, wrote in Business Standard on January 17.
Saran, a Padma Bhushan awardee who also led the team that put together the country’s first National Action Plan on Climate Change in 2008 and served as the Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board, added that while religion and defence have been used to push forward several developmental projects in the Himalaya, it would be good to remember that “respecting religious sentiments should not mean constructing six-lane highways” in the mountains. Moreover, improved access to these remote areas for defence needs – by neglecting environmental norms which could in turn cause disasters – could cut communication channels over the long term too, he wrote. He called for an urgent
‘Grave injustice’ to deny development
Joshimath, a hill town in Uttarakhand and part of the Himalaya mountain range, has been in the news lately for the land subsidence, or sinking of land, that it has been witnessing. Cracks have appeared on houses, shops and roads, and hundreds have been relocated to safer grounds.
Shyam Saran
Experts have pointed out that such regions in the Himalaya are located in a geologically fragile area. Joshimath, especially, is located on an ancient landslide. It is also situated in a seismic zone – as many areas in this region are – because the Himalaya is a young mountain range still undergoing uplift. Therefore, major construction activities have to take this into account, they have maintained.
Activists and scientists have also pointed out that numerous developmental projects — including hydel power projects and the unscientific widening of existing roads — have destabilised land in the area. Near Joshimath, for instance, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) was conducting blasting and tunnelling work for the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project until they brought it to a halt when the issue of land subsidence emerged in early January.
One cannot deny development to people living in remote mountain areas and doing so would be tantamount to “grave injustice”, said Saran, in an article for Business Standard on January 17. The “real issue has always been about pursuing development in keeping with environmental sustainability”, he wrote.
Recommendations not followed?
He highlighted how the first ever National Action Plan on Climate Change – which he led, as the PM’s Special Envoy on Climate Change – had, therefore, included a National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem as one of the eight national missions.
“The mission document emphasised that the “Himalayan ecosystem is vital to the ecological security of the Indian landmass”, which includes preservation of rich biodiversity, providing water security as the world’s third ice pole after the Arctic and the Antarctica and influencing weather patterns throughout the subcontinent,” he wrote. He also added that various follow up actions were also recommended after this. This included inventorying pilgrim sites in the Himalayan zone across the state, and scientifically estimating each site’s carrying or load-bearing capacity in terms of numbers of pilgrims it can accommodate daily and yearly.
“The tragedy of Joshimath, which is likely to become uninhabitable, demonstrates the perils of ignoring the key metric of the carrying capacity of the fragile Himalayan ecology,” he wrote.
Another recommendation included permitting road constructing roads only beyond 10 kilometres from protected pilgrim sites, so as to create “an ecological and spiritual buffer zone” with minimal human interference; and discouraging the unplanned growth of settlements. Road construction that is undertaken should be ‘green’ and key guidelines included for this included mandatory environmental impact assessments for all roads and highways of more than 5 kms in length, including the extension and widening of existing roads. Road construction plans needed to include provision for the disposal of debris from construction sites, to avoid blocking natural drainage in the construction zone.
“The rampant neglect of this rule has led to water-logging in upstream areas and water scarcity in downstream areas in many parts of the Himalayan region,” he wrote.
Since the Himalaya are still seismically unstable, it was also recommended that hydropower projects be only run-of-the-river, which, unlike larger hydel dams, have little or no storage capacity, he added.
Overlooking environment and geology
In recent times, authorities have used “the twin demands of both religion and defence” to overlook “environmental and terrain considerations” while undertaking infrastructure development in the Himalayan zone.
“Respecting religious sentiments should not mean constructing six-lane highways to sacred pilgrim spots deep in the Himalayas,” he wrote in the Business Standard. Moreover, the improved access to these remote areas for defence – that is enabled easily by neglecting environmental norms which could in turn cause disasters – might be counterproductive as more disasters in future could cut communication channels over the long term too.
“There is an urgent need to undertake a detailed survey of such settlements [facing subsidence] by multi-disciplinary expert teams, both to understand the nature and scale of the challenge that confronts us and what we need to do to both halt and then reverse the disturbing trends that are intensifying day by day,” he wrote.
