NHPC violating court orders : CEA

NHPC carried out work on Subansiri Lower dam in violation of court orders: Central Electricity Authority (CEA)

CentralElectricity Authority (CEA) official data confirms that 184,574 cubic metres(cum) of concreting done in main dam after court stay order. This volume of concreteis equivalent to over 30,000truck loadsof material. Or around the amount ofconcrete required to build 7000 two-bedroom flats. NHPC lied to both the courtsand the people of Assam.

NHPChas illegally carried out work on the main dam in the 2000 MW Subansiri Lowerhydroelectric project in violation of orders of the National Green Tribunal.

Inits common  judgement dated October 16,2017 in Tularam Gogoi Vs Union of India&Ors.(and Aabhijeet Sharma Vs Unionof India &Ors.), the NGT had recorded that by its past orders dated11.12.2015 and 5.04.2016 it had only allowed urgent repairs and emergencymaintenance work for safety and protection for people in the vicinity. It hadclearly stated that no work on the main project will take place. The mainjudgement is attached as Annexure 1.

AASUcarried out an analysis of the quarterly review reports of the Hydro ProjectMonitoring Division of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) which areuploaded on its website at the following link: http://cea.nic.in/hpm.html

Chapter6 in each of these quarterly reports is on 'Status of under constructionHEP'.  Although various quarterly reportssay that work is stopped since 16.12.2011, analysis of the data in thesereports reveals a gross violation by NHPC.

Reportsof the Quarterly Review No. 82 (July – September 2015) upto the QuarterlyReview No. 96 (January – March 2019) are uploaded at the above mentionedweblink.

From the Quarterly Review No. 82 (July – September 2015) to the Quarterly Review No. 86 (July – September 2016)  in Chapter 6 on the project status vis-à-vis the main dam it is stated:

Central Electricity Authority (CEA) official data

"Concreting:575426cum completed out of 1823782 cum"

Chapter6 of the CEA Quarterly report No. 86 (July – September 2016) is attached as Annexure 2.

However,the very next quarterly report, No. 87 (October – December 2016) states in thesame section on project status of main dam:

"Concreting:7.5lacscum completed out of 19.96 lacs cum"

Thechange of concreting target is due to the changes in design of dam. However,the important part to note is the change in actual concreting done.It has already jumped from 575426 cubic metres (cum) to 750000 cubic metres(cum) in one quarter.

Chapter6 of the Quarterly report no. 87 is attached as Annexure 3.

TheQuarterly report No. 88 (January – March 2017) records concreting done on damas:

"Concreting:7.6lacscum completed out of 19.96 lacs cum"

Chapter6 of the Quarterly report No. 88 is attached as Annexure 4.Since then the figure remains the same until the 92^ndreport.

Therefore,this shows that from October 2016 to March 2017 the change in concreting on themain dam is from  575426 cum to 760000cum.  Therefore, in this period the concreting done is 184574 cubic metres.

TheCEA report clearly states this is the concreting for the main dam. It is clearthat such a large quantity of concreting for the main dam will have noconnection with urgent repairs and emergency maintenance work for the projectwhich was permitted by the courts.

Justto give an idea of the scale of concreting done in lay person's terms: If wewere to take a truck of volume 6 cubic metres (cum), it means the amount ofconcrete poured into the dam after the court's stay order is equivalent to 30,762 truck loads! 

Togive another example, this translates into the concrete required to buildaround 7000 two-bedroom flats in an RCC construction.[1]

NHPChas been lying to us. It has committed a gross violation of the court ordersand cheated the people and government of Assam.

Infact, even before the court orders, if we see the CEA monthly report forDecember 2011 to look at status of construction, it shows the concretingcompleted by 31.12.2011 as 556539 cum of concreting already done. This figureis less than the figure of 575426 cum which is the subsequent quarterly reports(e.g. 86^th quarterly report). Therefore, even after December 2011when NHPC claims it stopped work and before the court stay order, it had doneadditional concreting work on the main dam equivalent to 18,887 cum. TheDecember 2011 CEA monthly report is attached at Annexure 5. But an additional huge amount of concreting  equivalent to 184,574 cum has been done afterthe court stay order, October 2016 onwards, as pointed out above. Therefore,after December 2011 the concreting work on main dam is 203461 cum of concrete.

NHPCneeds to be held accountable for the lies it has told the people of Assam andthe courts in India.

[1]184, 574 cubic metres of concrete is equivalentto around 65 lakh cubic feet of concrete. This translates into the concreterequired for around 59 lakh square feet of construction if we were to takeconventional RCC construction. If we take a two bedroom flat of 850 square feet, this translates into concreterequired for building 6968 flats!