Irri dept may push Human dam site back by 1-2 km

Nagpur: The irrigation department on Tuesday decided to shift the existing proposed site for the Human dam major project a little away. The dam is set to come up not far from the Tadoba and Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur district.
At a meeting of the sub-committee of state board for wildlife (SBWL) consisting of top forest officials, board members, and irrigation department engineers, the irrigation officials showed readiness to revise the original proposal.

“There were some issues put forward by the wildlife department and experts to shift the project site 5km away from the existing site to safeguard wildlife corridor. We may think of shifting the site by 1-2 kms,” said irrigation officials after the meeting.

“We will mitigate by creating a corridor 1.5km wide on the downstream side of the dam for animals. Besides, an additional corridor connecting Chandrapur forest with Brahmapuri will also be created. This will be done to overcome fears of wildlife experts that the project will completely block corridor between Tadoba-Ghodazari-Navegaon-Nagzira. We will revise the proposal in 15 days to make it feasible and again a site visit will be conducted,” they told TOI.

However, the officials and members attending the meeting said, “We have not committed anything. Any comments will be submitted only after the revised proposal is received from irrigation department.”

The meeting was chaired by principal secretary (forest) Vikas Kharge, PCCF (wildlife) Nitin Kakodkar, APCCF Sunil Limaye, APCCF (Mantralaya) Virendra Tiwari, CCF SV Ramarao, Tadoba field director NR Praveen, DyCF G Guruprasad, board members Kishor Rithe, Deepak Apte, Bandu Dhotre, superintending engineer Vemul Konda and executive engineer Arvind Gedam.

The irrigation officials said it will bring down submergence area by reducing the height of dam by one metre. This will reduce submergence from 2,079 hectares to 1,536 hectares.

The project needs diversion of 1,926 hectares rich forest land which will destroy over 1.51 lakh trees. The committee was constituted 3 years ago but met on Tuesday for the first time to push the project by claiming to provide irrigation and drinking water to 160 villages in Saoli, Pombhurna, Mul and Chandrapur. The irrigation department has also linked the project to reduce Naxal problem in Chandrapur.

The irrigation officials were hopeful about the positive talks during the meeting. However, its revised proposal is unlikely to match the recommendations made by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) committee which asked to shift the project 5km upstream from the present site in Sirkada, 3.5km from Tadoba tiger reserve boundary.

The NTCA panel had also asked to procure private land to restore structural corridor of 3-4km downstream and convert it into forest by planting native species. The panel had also suggested options to develop lift irrigation, barrage, small dams etc. However, the irrigation department is so far non-committal on these options. The irrigation department says the committee suggestions are unacceptable.

“The project will open floodgates for poaching and illegal fishing in the dam waters. You cannot drive tigers from a specific area by creating an artificial corridor. No mitigation can compensate the damage that will be caused by the major dam. Such dams are generally planned to supply water to power plants and industries under the garb of irrigation,” said Yogesh Dudhpachare, member of the Tadoba local advisory committee.