The Hindu : National : Protest against hydel projects in Sikkim

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
ePaper

National

National

Protest against hydel projects in Sikkim

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Members of the Lepcha tribe of Sikkim are up in arms against the Centre’s proposal to build a series of mega hydro power projects in the Dzongu region that has been declared a protected area and its indigenous people a primitive tribe.

The youth of the tribe have come together under the banner of Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) and have been on an indefinite fast or ‘satyagraha’ for the past 35 days demanding immediate scrapping of at least six of the seven proposed projects that, they feel, would “devastate the region from head to toe.”

On the one hand, the Lepchas have been declared a primitive tribe by the State Government, and on the other, they are assisting capitalist companies to bulldoze, plunder and devastate in the name of development of the land that had been protected for decades, according to Dawa Lepcha, ACT general secretary, who is also on fast.

The Union Environment and Forests Ministry had laid down a condition while clearing the Teesta stage V project stating that “no projects in Sikkim shall be considered for environment clearance until the Carrying Capacity of the Teesta basin is completed.”

The study is yet to be completed but several projects have been granted clearance, the ACT points out.

More than half of Dzongu, especially the upper region, is inside the Kanchenjunga National Park (KNP) and the Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve. The dam site of one of the projects is within a kilometre of the Park while 4,005 hectares of Biosphere Reserve are being offered to the company in the guise of catchment area, including portions of the core zone in the Park, Mr. Lepcha told The Hindu from the dharna site in Sikkim.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National