There are some pointers:1. An individual belonging to this mailing list who has been working with a small dam had narrated here that they had to dismantle the dam in California due to adverse ecological effects, and it would need another 30 years or so to undo the damage. 2. No Mega Dams are being built in the United States or any other developed countries and in fact some of them are being dismantled as reported in the north west of the US. (So where do the dam builders/ turbine makers dump their wares?) 3. Last few power ministers in Arunachal Pradesh have gone on to become Chief Ministers; one Chief Minister was removed for he delayed in granting permission for a big dam; another died in a 'tragic' helicopter accident. 4. The floods caused by the relatively small Kurishwa (I am not sure of the spelling) dam in Bhutan have been causing devastation in lower Assam districts year after year now. (Have we forgotten about Chinese misadventure of the Three Gorges Dam?) 5. The Dams on Subansiri are being built contrary to expert committee advice; without proper assessment of down stream impacts; whereas heights have been increased the foundations are being shortened on the plea of hitting bed rock! (sedimentary rocks :-)) 6. The 400+ unit per sec flow of Subansiri would come down to about 6+ something (i.e. trickles) during the day, whereas at peak hour generation time it would increase many fold to create flash floods and causing extinction of many species of life and also is likely create sandy wastelands down stream. 7. The list goes on...... It is not merely a question of dam safety.and technology ..... it is a question of what man can make of man only for a few fast bucks in the interest of Finance Capital that rules the world now and destroys even democracies by dictating to democratically elected governments in policy matters as is exposed too shamefully even in euro periphery countries like Portugal, Greece. And Finance Capital in its interest has created even in the minds of the suckers a newspeak and an outlook that deny them the faculty to see the facts as they stand. Nothing can be expected of even a democratically elected government here as it cannot act beyond what it had already agreed to in its bonhomie with Finance Capital. The self-destruct button pushed by humanity is beyond redemption, as it appears. Uttam Kumar Borthakur _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
