No new hydel project on upper Ganga: Govt to SC

THe Centre has told the sublime margaret court it testament let no young hydroelectric projects in the upper reaches of the Ganga — the Alaknanda-Bhagirathi basin in Uttarakhand — and has rejected the recommendations of a court-appointed expert body that had cleared 28 such projects , although sevenof these projects already commissioned or at an advanced stage of construction will be permitted to proceed.The upper Ganga basin is among the most ecologically volatile stretches of the Himalayas. Lying entirely within Seismic Zones IV and V, the Alaknanda-Bhagirathi system is the principal headstream of the Ganga — which sustains nearly half of India’s population — and is prone to landslides, glacial lake outburst floods, avalanches, tunnel collapses and geodynamic instabilities. It hosts endangered and Schedule-I species and carries profound cultural and spiritual significance. Recurrent disasters have made the cost of misreading this terrain unmistakable.The affidavit, filed by the Union environment ministry on Tuesday on behalf of three ministries — environment, Jal Shakti and power — repudiates Expert Body-II (EB-II) which had recommended 28 hydroelectric projects (HEPs) for implementation. A Cabinet Secretary-headed committee subsequently reviewed the EB-II list and brought it down to five projects. The Centre has rejected even those five.Seven projects — four commissioned, three with substantial physical and financial progress — will be permitted to continue: Tehri PSP on Bhagirathi; Tapovan Vishnugad on Dhauliganga; Vishnugad Pipalkoti on Alaknanda; Singoli Bhatwari on Mandakini; Phata Byung on Mandakini; Madhmaheshwar on Madhmaheshwar Ganga; and Kaliganga II on Kaliganga. Experts have warned that even these carry risk. The EB I report headed by Ravi Chopra also highlighted these concerns.To be sure, many such projects are in the works at other high-altitude Himalayan ranges, including in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.The affidavit was filed in compliance with a Supreme Court order of January 20, 2026, which had granted the Union government three months to decide on the committee’s recommendations. Its reasoned: EB-II and the Cabinet Secretary committee both “failed to adequately factor critical geological and disaster-related parameters, including cumulative and cascading impacts.” Any decision on HEPs here, it says, “necessarily warrants a cautious and precautionary approach.”The three major contributing streams — Alaknanda, Bhagirathi and Mandakini — must maintain a minimum flow of 1,000 cusecs in keeping with the 1916 Haridwar Agreement to prevent dry stretches downstream of project structures. The agreement was on the amount of water that should flow through the weirs, canals, and main stem of the Ganga river at Haridwar..The role of hydroelectric power projects has been under legal scrutiny since the June 2013 Kedarnath cloudburst and flooding that killed over 5,000 people officially, although the true toll is widely estimated to be significantly higher. The Supreme Court took suo motu cognizance and directed the environment ministry to study the role of HEPs in the tragedy, leading to the establishing of EB-I, chaired by Ravi Chopra of Dehradun’s People’s Science Institute. It reported in April 2014 that 23 of 24 HEPs under review would significantly damage the biodiversity of the Alaknanda-Bhagirathi basins. The Central Electricity Authority and Central Water Commission dissented, recommending hydropower be encouraged as clean energy. With the reports in conflict, the Supreme Court in May 2014 stayed construction on all 24 HEPs.In 2015, the court constituted EB-II under BP Das, a Bhubaneswar-based hydrology expert who had also served on EB-I. Das passed away in 2019. The February 7, 2021 glacial flood on Rishi Ganga — which devastated HEP infrastructure in the valley — demonstrated precisely the cascading risk EB-I had flagged seven years earlier.Ravi Chopra, who headed EB I, said some under construction projects which have been cleared can also have significant ecological impacts and exacerbate disasters.“The Expert Body I report was submitted in April 2014. Many of the arguments in the Centre’s affidavit are based on the recommendations made by EB-I against promoting new hydropower projects in the Upper Ganga basin. The Phata Byung project should not be reconsidered at all because it was totally destroyed during the 2013 floods. From what I know, a new company has bought it from the previous project developer, who in turn had purchased it from LANCO the original developer that went bankrupt after the project was destroyed,” Ravi Chopra said.“Among the main recommendations that our committee made in 2013, two are very critical. One was that we had shown how vulnerable dams are in the Paraglacial zone, which is above the main central thrust (MCT) and therefore we had recommended that these dams not be built. We had also said that before the onset of the 2014 monsoons, real time early warning systems should be established at all the projects. If these recommendations would have been adopted, the Tapovan Vishnugad disaster would not have happened in 2021,” he added.“So the destruction and the killing of all those workers at the project site appears to be a case of criminal negligence. Even now, Tapovan Vishnugad is in a paraglacial zone. There is no question of continuing with that project. Vishnugad Pipalkoti is sitting just in the MCT zone. That needs to be abandoned too. And Phata Byung, for anybody to claim, it’s in a state of advanced construction, is a lie. There is no construction work done over there. The government, it seems, has finally, after all these years, realised that most of these projects are not really worth pursuing,” Chopra added.“This is a long-awaited victory for the Ravi Chopra-headed EB-I. The government has finally acknowledged how HEPs can destroy Ganga in the upper reaches,” said Hemant Dhyani, a member of EB-I. Mallika Bhanot of Ganga Ahvaan said the decade-long detour through EB-II reflected the strength of the pro-hydropower lobby. “EB-I had established direct and indirect impacts of HEPs on the Himalayan ecosystem. Then EB-II was constituted and given terms of reference to suggest design changes to facilitate construction. Now this affidavit considers the cumulative impact. The Ministry of Jal Shakti has stood its ground since 2016 — they should be given credit,” she said.