Guwahati, Oct 28: In another major setback for the North Eastern region towards self-sufficiency in power generation, a massive landslide has hit the 2,000 Mega Watt (MW) Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project in Arunachal Pradesh.

According to government sources, the landside occurred on Friday some 300 metres away from the dam site, blocking the only diversion tunnel that was being used to divert water of Subansiri River downstream. This has affected the flow of the river downstream.

This natural calamity comes weeks after another calamity hit the North Eastern state of Sikkim, where the Chungthang dam was destroyed by a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood, causing massive flash floods and deposition of huge volume of sedimentation downstream resulting in loses of several lives, properties and infrastructure.

Authorities in Lakhimpur district of Assam, downstream of the dam being built in Arunachal Pradesh, has issued an advisory asking people of the downstream areas to be alert and restrain from activities like fishing, swimming, bathing, plying of boats. People have also been alerted to keep their domestic animals away from the river.

According to National Hydropower Corporation Limited’s (NHPC) statement, “Out of the five diversion tunnels, only diversion tunnel number one was in use and has been blocked due to the landslide. The other four diversion tunnels had already been blocked earlier. As a result, the river’s flow downstream has been significantly reduced. The dam’s spillway bay level is at 145 metres above sea level. The current river flow of 997 cubic metres per second is being stored in the reservoir, and the water level reached 139 metres by 1 pm. It is expected that the water level will reach 145 metres by the evening, and the river will return to flowing through the spillway normally.”

Major landslides had earlier blocked the four diversion tunnels on the river, which are not currently in use as construction is almost complete.

In the past decade, construction of this dam has faced major opposition from activists and locals, fearing massive downstream impact.

In April last year, the powerhouse protection wall collapsed due to tail race channel construction activities of Units 1 and 2. The tail race channels, which release water back into the river after passing through turbines, are located on the right bank of the river in Arunachal Pradesh.

Over the past three years, the project site has been hit by four major landslides.

The NHPC began construction of the project in January 2005. However, the work was stalled from December 2011 to October 2019 due to agitations and protests by locals in downstream Assam.

According to a company estimate in January 2020, the cost of the project, originally scheduled to have been commissioned in December 2012, had escalated to around Rs 20,000 crore from the initial worth of Rs 6,285 crore. The 2,000 MW SLHEP is divided into eight units of 250 MW each.

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