This document by Urgewald provides a brief overview on the role of India's premier dam building agency, the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) in the construction of dams in India and is highly critical of the mode in which the NHPC has been aggressively expanding its operations of building dams across rivers in the country.
It aims to inform the public, investors and financiers about NHPC’s track record and expansion plans and presents compiled information from three regions where NHPC has been actively involved in the construction of dams namely:
- Narmada Valley in Central India
- Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in Northeastern India
- The lands of the Kuki people in Northwestern Burma, where NHPC is building a dam for the military junta.
The document argues that the NHPC has been consistently ignoring the conditions set out by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), state legislation, court judgments and the need to have project agreements to guarantee the rights of people affected by its projects.
It has continued unchecked in its activities while ignoring the rights of the people occupying the lands on which dams are built leading to destruction of villages and uprootment of people from their traditional lands, while also destroying pristine natural areas and endangering the lives and livelihoods of downstream communities.
The document describes the way in which the rights of the local people residing in these areas where the dams are proposed to be built are being systematically ignored by the NHPC . It warns that there is a danger that other self reliant communities will also be reduced to utter poverty, besides destruction of environment and natural resources by irresponsible actions of organisations such as the NHPC that have been compromising valuable human and environmental resources to feed the greed of a very few.
The document takes a very strong stance against the activities of the NHPC and ends by arguing that any institution with a social ethic, with a concept of responsible lending, with respect for the rule of law, any institution for which people matter, has to blacklist the NHPC.
Download the document here from the International Rivers Network website.
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