The washing away of the dam of the Teesta-III project and damage to the Teesta-V dam in Sikkim because of Lhonak Lake in north-west Sikkim has again brought focus on the series of hydel projects that ‘have been built, are being built and are proposed’ on one of the most dammed rivers in the country.
Sikkim’s biggest hydro power project Sikkim Urja (formerly Teesta Urja) on Wednesday suffered massive damage due to the flash flood on Tuesday night as the dam and the bridge connecting the powerhouse were washed away.
In 2004, the Central Electricity Authority prepared a preliminary feasibility report of 162 hydel projects in the country with an installed capacity of 50,000 MW of power generation of which 10 were to be built in Sikkim with an installed capacity of 1,469 MW.
As the years passed, more projects were added and as per the National Hydropower Development Corporation (NHDC), 47 hydropower projects are in different development stages on Teesta river in Sikkim and West Bengal. Of them, nine have been commissioned, work on 15 dams is going on and another 28 are in the pipeline.
According to a paper on hydel projects in Sikkim published in the World Water Council journal, more than half of the hydel projects are in northern Sikkim, which was most affected by the Wednesday floods. Experts have also pointed out that north Sikkim is prone to landslides triggered by extreme rain events, whose frequency has increased in the recent past across the Himalayan belt, according to various studies by the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
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