Small Hydro Power Projects Are Seen As Green. In The Western Ghats, Local Communities Disagree https://www.article-14.com/post/small-hydro-power-projects-are-seen-as-green-in-the-western-ghats-local-communities-disagree-6181f91fb3efc DISHA SHETTY 03 Nov 2021 11 min read Share
As India pushes for more renewables in its energy mix to meet its global climate-change pledges, one of these options, small hydropower projects, was once heralded as benign and beneficial, despite a dearth of studies on their impacts on local communities and ecology. The story of one such project facing opposition from locals in the lush Western Ghats.
Small hydropower projects, typically between 0.5 and 24.5 mega watts (MW), enough to light up a village on the lower end and a city on the higher, have increased human-elephant conflict, led to the loss of thousands of trees, disrupted riverine life and the lives of local communities....
“There is no governance mechanism surrounding small hydel projects in India, that is the main problem,” said Parineeta Dandekar, associate coordinator of the SANDRP. “They are exempt from the EIA (environment impact assessment) notification of 2006 and entire environment clearance procedures.”
Being exempt from the EIA notification implies there is no need for a public hearing before a project moves forward, which means local communities affected by it have no way to voice their concerns.
“SHP (small hydropower projects) are often defined based on their installed hydropower capacity, and most countries adopt 10 MW as the cut-off,” said Jumani. “In India, we define SHP projects as those that produce less than 25 MW.”..
That the threshold takes into account the power capacity of a project can be misleading.
“A 5 MW dam can cause more submergence or adverse environmental impact than a 25 MW dam based on dam location and characteristics,” said Jumani. “Instead, dam size definitions based on dam height and reservoir area are likely to be better indicators of impact.”
Ideal Small Hydropower Project
Small hydropower projects initially had the support of movements that were against large dams, said Manju Menon, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, a public policy think tank.
But these projects were supposed to be designed around the needs of the local communities, in a way that doesn’t disrupt livelihoods.
Menon said these projects were regarded not just as technologies but as “decentralised institutional interventions”. “But governments have taken these projects from local discourses and put them into the hands of contractors and dam builders,” she added.
In Nagaland, for instance, localised hydro projects reach electricity to remote areas. Experts said instead of a small-versus-big debate, each project deserved to be assessed on environmental parameters, such as location, how it would change the flow of a river, what the benefits and impact would be.
As India scales up renewables, said experts, there is also a need to have conversations that involve local communities and assess the social costs.