NEW DELHI: The Centre on Wednesday trashed Supreme Court-appointed high powered committee chairman Ravi Chopra’s attempts to link the recent flash floods in Uttarakhand to the widening of roads for the Char Dham project in an eco-fragile zone and told the court that it was a “unilateral” expression of “baseless and unwarranted” views.
In its December 31 report to the SC, 16 members of the HPC had approved the Char Dham project and widening of roads up to 10 metres. However, chairman Chopra and two others opposed widening of roads beyond a width of 5.5 metres. In its January 15 affidavit, the Centre had termed Chopra’s views as “personal” and “bereft of a holistic approach” which required keeping in mind the requirement of the armed forces to move troops fast, especially in view of the standoff on the India-China border.
Attorney general K K Venugopal and solicitor general Tushar Mehta on Wednesday informed a bench of Justices R F Nariman, Hemant Gupta and Bhushan R Gavai about Chopra’s February 13 letter. “Yesterday we received a letter from the chairman of the HPC, written on his own and linking the recent disaster to the Char Dham project. According to the defence ministry, the chairman’s observations in the letter are baseless and unwarranted. There is no link at all between the disaster and the project,” the AG said.
The bench accepted the AG’s request for two weeks to respond to the letter., in which Chopra said, “I am compelled to write this letter to the Supreme Court in light of the recent disaster in Uttarakhand’s Char Dham region. Two dams were destroyed in the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga (west) river valleys, before the flood waters entered the Alaknanda valley below NH 58 (the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway) and swept away another suspension bridge. Thirty-six bodies have been recovered so far and over 170 people are reportedly missing.”
After the 2013 Kedarnath disaster caused by a cloudburst, the SC-appointed expert body headed by Chopra gave a report in April 2014 to the court on the disaster potential of hydroelectric projects on the Alaknanda river. The EB report had highlighted the potential threat of paraglacial zones and emphasised that they were disasterprone areas. The EB had recommended that hydro-electric projects not be built in these valleys.
Chopra said if the 2014 recommendations in the EB report had been adopted, massive loss of lives and property could have been avoided in the Rishiganga and Tapovan Vishnugad projects. “Unfortunately, all under-construction projects continued their construction unhindered. Now, last Sunday’s tragic disaster has confirmed our fears and warnings,” he added.
Referring to the report submitted by three members of the HPC, including himself, on December 31, Chopra said, “It is strongly argued that disaster resilience is more critical than simply widening highways. Slope stabilisation works so far have been most inadequate as evident from frequent failures and road closures. Excessive treefelling, indiscriminate disposal of road construction and landslide debris have endangered downhill slopes and polluted rivers.”
In its January affidavit, the Centre had trashed the minority report and told the SC, “The majority report has taken a holistic view of the matter keeping in mind the social, economic and strategic needs of the country on the one hand and protecting the environment on the other.”