I will Loose Land to Tehri Dam without any Compensation(Opinion)

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Hi 

I am writing this sad tale of  My Village Land which is on it s way of submerging under water.I had fond memories of Village.My Father a Government servant was always on the move due to transfers as he was honest man did not participate in any corrupt practice his seniors ordered so it is self evident that they would not let him settle at one place.I frankly enjoyed his trransfers as it became an opportunity for us to see new stations in state of Uttar Pradesh.My father eventaully settled at Mussoorie.But we had our ancestral property on the banks of Bhagirathi near Chinyali Saur a small "Kasbaa' in Uttarkashi District just two hours before Uttarkashi the most revered town due to the way to Mother Ganges. The name of MY village is Mali Badangaon, actually they are two villages Malli is on the top and my bllageis below.My grandfather were 9 Brothers, probably 8 am not sure residing in joint family at the village.

we loved going to the village it meant playing at beaches the fresh food and vegetables that were in abundant due to fertile soil and off course mother Ganges. Suddenly on one fine morning a bomb exloded on our family:

The project  intended to generate 600MW hydro-power estimated at about Rs. 200 crores in 1972 when the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister influenced the Planning Commission to give clearance to the project. The 260 meter height earth and rock-fill dam at Tehri across Bhagirathi with storage capacity of 3500 million cu. m.  of water with an underground power  house of 1000MW under stage-I and another 1000MW with reversible pump turbines under Stage-II (Pump storage plant) and  It had another 103.5 meter high concrete dam with a gross storage of  86 million cu.m. of water as a balancing reservoir with a surface power house of 400MW at Koteswar, 22km downstream of Tehri dam site. It was proposed that  4238 million units of energy would be produced per year.  Tehri reservoir water  proposed to irrigate an additional area of 2.7 lakh ha. in non-monsoon period in Upper and Lower Ganga canal command area and  irrigation in the existing 6 lakh ha. Tehri power station would be run as a peaking station with the construction of Koteswar dam. If Hydel power was not available for meeting peaking requirement it would have to be met by diesel or gas-based power plants whose generation cost would be double that of hydro-power. 

The dam was underdesigned by using low seismicity for Tehri region. Since the dam is located in between the two crashing tectonic plates of India and Tibet known for devastating earthquakes,  the risks involved like dam failure result in wiping out of existence several  millions of people including saints and sadhu’s of Devprayag, Rishikesh, Hardwar and other places.  The devastating floods caused by the  inevitable collapse of the Earth and Rockfill dam at Tehri  and the  concrete dam  at Koteswar, 22kms down, will destroy lakhs of villages and hundreds of towns and cities all long the river Ganges in U.P., Bihar and Bengal. 

HOW SOME EXPERTS HAVE MISLED THE GOVERNMENT ON SAFETY OF TEHRI DAM:

• For instance the National Standing Committee for seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) of the Central Water Commission has recommended a seismic coefficient of 0.15 for the design of the Tehri dam.  This is a very low value which makes the design unsafe.  Infact Mr.B.B.L.Goyal, Chief Engineer of Tehri dam in a Technical paper(Technical session IX, CBIP, July, 1989) stated that Watana dam in Alaska and Karun dam in Iran in a similar tectonic setting  were designed for seismic co-efficients of 0.5g on circum-pacific earthquake belt while Tehri dam was designed for only 0.15g.  Infact Hensha dam,  120ft. high, in California was  designed for a seismic co-efficients of 0.3g.  Japanese codes specify the coefficient for embankment dams  as 0.3g.  Hence Tehri dam was under-designed because NCSDP  experts furnished wrong design criteria, perhaps because several members were experts in collateral fields other than seismology and environmental safety.
• Dr.V.K.Gaur, Director of NGRI an International expert in seismology suggested that the peak ground acceleration at Tehri may be taken as 1.0g but the experts of the Department of Earthquake Engineering of Roorkee University who  were predominantly Civil Engineers insisted that Tehri will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7 on Richter scale and hence PGA for design purposes may be taken as 0.25g.  This clearly shows that Roorkee University experts gave wrong technical data for design of the Tehri dam.
• The Roorkee experts have gone out of the way to deride the estimate on seismicity of Tehri made by Dr.V..K.Gaur on 16-10-1986 in a technical meeting held  under the chairmanship of M.A.Chitale, Chairman, CWC to study the feasibility of construction of Tehri dam for seismic considerations.  Even during this meeting 25 experts representing Central Water Commission(CWC), Geological Survey of India(GSI), National Geological Research Institute(NGRI) and Roorkee University etc., came to an erroneous conclusion that Tehri will not experience an Earthquake of more than 7.0 to 7.2 magnitude and that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.25g recommended  by the Roorkee experts will be adequate for the design of Tehri dam to ensure its safety.   In the light of this unscientific affirmation on seismicity and PGA values recommended for the design of Tehri dam, the participants  cannot be considered as relevant experts and the organisations represented by these experts become suspect.
• When the Tehri project authorities presented Environmental Action Plans before the 13-member environmental expert committee of the Union Ministry of Environment for Environmental clearance in November 1989, the project authorities stated that the dam was designed by Roorkee experts for an Earthquake of magnitude 7 and a PGA of 0.5g and an effective PGA of 0.25g deduced by using Mc.Guire equation based on distance-magnitude relation.  After consulting several experts and making an indepth study and visit to Tehri in January 1990, the committee concluded that seismicity at Tehri will 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale as against magnitude 7 assumed by Roorkee experts and that in the event of dam failure many  holy places  like Rishikesh  and Hardwar will be washed  away and hence rejected the Tehri  project.
• For more details go to 

source:http://www.gitam.edu/cos/env/tehri/tehridam.html

Anyway after govt decided in favour of dam the reservoir that would be created extended till my Village.Gradually the ganges water level started rising and it engulfed our low lying fields which wer completely submerged.Govt decided that it would pay compensation to those whose land and village was submrging under water.The govt said that they will get land at Dehradun or elsewhere as compensation.

Which my family has not recieved and just becuase we did not agree to pay bribes to the officials concerned.

My Village will soon be covered with water and a culture will be lost in oblivion.

We were refused compensation on the grund that my parents hd land in Mussoorie.Therefore all the brothers were deprived of compensation.

The Case is now in front of curt and lets us see what happens.

Frankly speaking if they do not submerge my village that would be the 

thing to happen best because  i am really fond of the place.But if it drowns then we are asking for compensation and that also the land.