Congress slams govt over ‘thoughtless clearance for Teesta dam rebuild’

On Wednesday, the Congress criticized the Centre’s alleged approval for constructing a dam for the Teesta III hydel project to replace the one destroyed in the 2023 glacial lake flood, stating it was a “reckless approval” since the risk of disaster remained at the dam location.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary responsible for communications, posted on X a media article that stated the chief of the BJP’s Sikkim unit would meet Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav later this month to elevate concerns regarding safety issues linked to the approval for constructing a dam for the Teesta III hydel project.

“The INC (Indian National Congress) also opposes this thoughtless clearance. The threat of disaster persists at the dam site. There are also cascading and multiplying effects on habitations downstream,” Ramesh said.

He additionally shared the Congress’ statement from last August, where the opposition criticized the government, claiming that hydel projects in environmentally sensitive areas had been established in recent years without sufficient consideration of their overall environmental effects.

The Congress had emphasized that the dams on the Teesta river vividly illustrate how the ecosystem was being drastically changed, posing serious risks for both the current and future generations. In his statement from August, Ramesh pointed out that a series of landslide disasters in Sikkim had significantly harmed the Teesta V, a 510 MW hydropower station located on the river.

This catastrophe follows the Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF) and riverine flooding within the Teesta river basin in October 2023, which resulted in extensive destruction in Sikkim and Kalimpong in West Bengal, he observed.

A series of hydro projects on the Teesta has made the river more susceptible to flooding, eroding parts of National Highway-10, the Congress general secretary stated. The disaster in October 2023 was triggered by the GLOF, but it escalated to catastrophic levels because of the failure of the Teesta III dam, the Congress leader stated.