ITANAGAR, 5 Feb: The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) has said that neither the Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary (MWS) nor the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary (DWS) will be affected by the 2,880 mw Dibang Multipurpose Project (DMP).
In a press release, the project developer on Saturday said that the MWS and the DWS are located about 14 kms and about 35 kms, respectively, from the reservoir’s periphery.
“Hence, no part of these sanctuaries will be affected either due to construction activities or due to submergence,” it said.
The NHPC said that the environment management plans along with the safeguard measures “as stipulated in the conditions of forest clearance will be implemented in collaboration with state government and other expert agencies in due course of time once the project construction is started.”
It said that the DMP would be instrumental in bringing overall prosperity to the region in terms of infrastructure development and socioeconomic development, apart from green energy generation and flood moderation in the downstream areas of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
On forest clearance, it said that, following inspection by a committee constituted by the central government, “the optimal condition which was observed that when the height of dam gets reduced by 10 mtrs, there is reduction in about 500 hectares of forest land and 120 mw of power generation. Hence, the dam height of the project was reduced by 10 mtrs (from 288 mtrs to 278 mtrs) and installed capacity from 3,000 mw to 2,880 mw to optimize forest land requirement from 5056.5 hectares to 4,577.84 hectares.”
In compliance with the conditions of the in-principle forest clearance granted earlier by the union ministry of environment, forest & climate change (MoEF&CC) under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, the NHPC deposited “Rs 628.68 crores in the State Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management & Planning Authority’s account in September 2019, towards net present value (Rs 380.08 crores), compensatory afforestation (Rs 213.44 crores), catchment area treatment plan (Rs 23.95 crores) and wildlife management plan (Rs 11.21 crores), and an additional Rs 211.5 lakhs towards zonal wildlife conservation plan (Rs 152.19 lakhs) and alternate habitat/home for avi-fauna (Rs 59.31 lakhs) in December 2019,” it said.
“The final approval of forest clearance was issued by the MoEF&CC on 12 March, 2020, after submission of compliance report by the state government as stipulated in the in-principle forest clearance,” it said.
