Subansiri Dam

Subansiri Dam

These days the construction of a mega dam on river Subansiri in the border area of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam is heating up the air of entire Assam. The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) is erecting the dam for the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri Hydro Project. A portion of this big dam will be constructed in Arunachal Pradesh and another part will be constructed in Assam side. It is situated right in the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border. Experts from various part of the Nation have warned of irreparable damage to the Brahmaputra floodplain in Assam besides harming aquatic life forms if the project is commissioned.

Professor T. Shivaji Rao a noted environmentalist and expert from Center for Environment Studies, GITAM University and Expert, Cloud seeding project in Andhra Pradesh has demanded re-design and reduction in height of the 115-metre Subansiri dam in Assam to minimise its adverse environmental impacts. According to him the 2000-W hydel project is fraught with danger as this dam is located in a highly seismic zone and it may finally collapse and which will results the destruction in downstream.

As per international standards, the Spillway Design flood must be at least 2-3 times this historical flood amounting to at least 50,000 cumec. Even then the dam remains under- designed from the structural safety angle because the seismic coefficient used for the design of the dam is 0.4 as against the anticipated peak value of 1.0. at this condition the will not stand for long as it the dam is going to burst and cause flash floods that will wipe out many villages and towns of downstream. Again we all know that the seismic zone of Gujarat and seismic zone of Assam is very different from each other. So it is possible to construct a dam in Gujarat, but not in Assam (specially over Subansiri).