Save Dzongu
The river Teesta has become a battleground for two impossibly irreconcilable world views. To the Lepchas, the indigenous community who have their homeland in Dzongu, it is a lifeline, an indispensable part of their sacred landscape, a landscape in which rivers and peaks are places where life originates, and where the souls of their ancestors reside. As nature worshipping people, Dzongu to them is the Land of the Hidden Paradise, where customs, traditions, nature, people and gods are intricately intertwined into a complex web of Lepcha culture, that must be preserved, cherished and revered. To the State, on the other hand, the Teesta is “white gold,” 7046 MW of raw energy desperate to be fettered, packaged and sold, where every drop flowing out to the sea is mindless drain of wealth, and any attempts to prevent taming this wealth is treachery on a national scale. The dam builders and their loyal agents claim that these schemes will result in prosperity and material comfort, but to the Lepchas these are clever disguises, aimed at expropriation and seizure of their resources. The Lepchas desire their own betterment, they say, but they do not want others to decide what’s better for them; they want 'progress,' 'development' and a 'better life,' but they want the right to define those terms themselves. The state has threatened, intimidated and coerced in its crusade to enrich power companies, but the Lepchas have put up a heroic resistance, striving, striking and starving to prevent the desecration of their homeland. But their sacrifices may end in vain. Unless something is urgently done, the zealots of progress and their pack of engineers will decide which way the Teesta will flow, rendering it invisible, a ghost river, never to be seen in its full splendour again.
also visit: www.saveteesta.wordpress.com
Periphery shaken by Centre’s neglect
Sikkim University Vice-Chancellor Prof. Mahendra P. Lama interviewed by Sushanta Talukdar in the Hindu
What are the lessons learnt from the September 18 earthquake that left a trail of devastation across Sikkim?
There are quite a few lessons we have learnt from this calamity. Firstly, our ability to cope up with natural disasters is still very nascent and limited.
We have not developed any formal institutions in this regard in the real sense of the term. More seriously, we suddenly realised that the robust system of community-based, voluntary management of natural calamities which remained the most pre-dominant phenomenon for centuries together is also fast vanishing. Today the disaster management task has become government centric whereas traditionally it used to be essentially community centric. Many of the States including Sikkim still do not have proper disaster management plans. We, therefore, must rethink our strategy.
Secondly, the communication system and other physical connectivities are also in a state of infancy despite so much of plans and projects.
Thirdly, the entire development dynamics in the mountain areas need to be reconsidered and reoriented in view of the fact that the casualties and destruction could be unprecedented and unmanageable if such calamities recur.
Fourthly, scientific studies and research on issues like seismology, hydrology, geo-morphology and the very nature and dimensions of natural disasters and their impact on the hills and mountain areas need to be strengthened and disseminated to the people at the grass roots. This has to be blended with traditional wisdom and belief about the impending disasters so that the communities are involved in disaster forewarning and management.
And finally, each disaster in the mountain areas is intensely integrated with other national interest issues including national security, physical dislocations and environmental injuries. This is more so as these theatres of disasters are located in the geo-politically sensitive border locations.
Read the full interview here
A Paradise Dammed
The 6.8 magnitude quake that shook Sikkim was termed a natural disaster. The devastation caused, however, was just as man-made. Sai Manish reports from Ground Zero
[…]
When TEHELKA visited the village of Lingza in the Dzongu Reserve, SDF cadre were tutoring people not to speak out against the dam projects and even objected when TEHELKA tried to talk to the indigenous Lepchas on their sustained opposition to massive dams in the vicinity of their sacred lands.
[…]
Documents available with TEHELKA show that Chamling went on a contractawarding spree between December 2005 and March 2006, inking 12 MoUs. On 1 March 2006, he cleared five projects worth over Rs 4,500 crore envisaging power generation along the Teesta to the tune of almost 1,800 MW. Till date, Chamling has sanctioned power projects that would produce an astounding 5,352.7 MW even though Sikkim’s own requirement is just 80 MW. The 30 new projects, including the 24 active projects of private players cleared by Chamling, are worth Rs 17,100 crore — a huge investment in hydro power for a small state like Sikkim. None of the power projects given to private players have been done through the process of bidding. […]
read full report here
Killer earthquakes on the rise
by Rashme Sehgal in the Deccan Chronicle
…
Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan confirms that “Huge amounts of water standing in earthquake areas can aggravate seismicity. But dams are being built recklessly over the entire Himalayan belt not keeping mind that these mountains are fragile and also seismically vulnerable.”
A committee set up by the West Bengal government studying landslides had warned the West Bengal way back in 2000 against the damming of the Teesta river but these recommendations, were thrown into the dustbin.
…
read full article here
A Convergence Of Faults
There were warnings aplenty. Why was Sikkim so unprepared?
by Dola Mitra , Debarshi Dasgupta in Outlook
…
…Once known for its traditional wooden houses, Sikkim today is littered with multi-storey concrete buildings that are death traps during major quakes. The Teesta Urja dam is another example of such nonchalance. Five years ago, the dam was strongly opposed by some groups, including the Affected Citizens of Teesta, who argued against its construction in a region known to be quake-prone. “Quake-resistant engineering of dams becomes more crucial as rivers tend to be guided along the earth’s faultlines,” Mitra says. “One should do a lot of assessments before putting a dam in a place like Sikkim and if you do, you have to do all you can to build it to survive a quake.”
…
Read full article here
Sreelatha Menon: Weeping Sikkim
Lepcha activists’ appeal to stop or regulate the blasting of the mountains to build dams has gone unheeded
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi September 25, 2011, 0:29 IST
‘Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do,’ is a saying Sikkim’s native Lepchas love to quote, since the state’s mountains are known to tremble often. The truth of this statement again came to the fore in the recent earthquake.
…
While more than 100 people lost their lives in Sikkim in the recent earthquake, only one died in the neighbouring nation Bhutan. While Bhutan’s 75 per cent forest cover held the soil together, what Sikkim had were blast-scarred construction sites on every peak.
read full article here
Quake damages 2 Teesta project sites
The Hindu article by Sushanta Talukdar
Sunday’s earthquake, which left a trail of destruction in Sikkim, has caused massive damage to some structures at two of the five project sites of the 1,200-megawatt hydro-power project in the upper reaches of the Teesta river. It claimed the lives of 16 workers and officials and caused injuries to several workers.
But Teesta Urja Limited, the company that is building the Rs.10,000-crore project, said no damage was done to any of the tunnels or the dam. Senior Deputy General Manager Mukul Jain told The Hindu that landslips triggered by the 6.8-magnitude earthquake caused massive damage to office buildings, workers’ colonies, tents and approach roads at the two sites. However, the headrace tunnel bringing water from the dam site to the powerhouse, the dam and the tunnels were intact.
read full article here
‘Sikkim quake may have been induced by dams across Teesta’
Hindustan Times article: Darjeeling, September 21, 2011
Professor Jeta Sankrityayan, former member State Planning Board, West Bengal and also a member of the landslide expert committee 1998, has opined that the presence of multiple dams on the river Teesta and its tributaries could either induce or accelerate earthquakes.
…
“A full scale inspection and study should be conducted by geologists and earth scientists into the recent quake and on the dam induced seismicity. It should be an independent probe not influenced by the Government. We should not be accelerating or bringing in such natural events otherwise we will definitely have to pay a dear price” suggested the Professor.
read full article here
MANGAN, 20 Sept: The death toll of people killed by landslides triggered by the Sunday earthquake has climbed to 40 in North Sikkim. This figure was 24 till last evening. The numbers spiked today as confirmation arrived of more lives having been lost in Dzongu on Sunday.
…
The slide also damaged the Adit IV & V tunnels of the 1,200 MW Teesta Stage III being developed by Teesta Urja. Locals fear that some labourers might be trapped inside these tunnels although this has not been officially confirmed yet.
read full article here
Sikkim earthquake: Scores of bodies found in rubble
Amalendu Kundu & Caesar Mandal, TNN; Sep 21, 2011
…
Officially, Sikkim has so far confirmed 58 deaths, the rest of the casualties being from Bhutan, Nepal, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand. But as shocking details emerged, authorities feared at least 40 workers at a hydel power plant site in North Sikkim’s Saffo might have perished within minutes, caught in a mountain duct when the tectonic plates under the lower Himalayas shook. Dozens others are missing and feared trapped in the same hydel project site and there’s no confirmation of the number of people engaged there.
…
“It is unlikely that any of the workers survived the earthquake (that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale). And even if they did, it’s doubtful that they’d hold out for very long. The area is mountainous and it will take days before tunnels are re-excavated and the bodies pulled out,” a government official said.
read full article here
Sikkim bill for public order
The Sikkim chief minister today tabled a bill in the Assembly for a special law to address “social vices and offences” that might cause disturbances to public order.
The bill seeks to ban processions, hunger strikes, squatting, sloganeering and waving black flags or other forms of agitation that might “promote enmity or hatred between sections of the society”on the “grounds of religion, race or caste”. Such actions will be deemed disturbances to public order, the bill states.
Read full article here
Save Dzongu 