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Bhutanese dams not to be blamed

19 December 2008

Kurichu dam

Kurichu dam

The flooding and consequent damage in Assam during the 2007 monsoon were not caused by the release of excess water from dams in Bhutan, which had been reported by Central Water Commission, India. The government of Assam had claimed that release of water from Bhutanese dams had caused floods in July, 2007. Similar concerns were also raised in 2008.

The Minister of State for Water Resources, Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav, reported to the Rajya Sabha session in the Indian Parliament that the flooding was actually caused by widespread heavy rainfall during the latter half of July in eastern and middle Bhutan. The minister’s report was a response to Assam Tribune’s article published in June which stated that the water level of Manah and Beki began to rise abnormally, due to the release of excess water from the Kurichu dyke in neighbouring Bhutan.

The Bhutanese Foreign Ministry immediately clarified that the Kurichhu Hydropower project is a run-ofthe- river and not a storage scheme.

An official from the Hydrology Division, Department of Energy, said small diversion dams like that of Kurichu just diverted water for generating electricity and didn’t store water.

“The project has neither the need nor the facility to regulate the flow of river,” he said.

Shri Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav told the Rajya Sabha that the issue was discussed with the Government of Bhutan during the 2nd meeting of Joint Group of Experts between India and Bhutan on Flood Management held in New Delhi in February this year.

The Bhutanese side informed the meeting that the projects Tala, Chukha, and Kurichu were run-of-theriver schemes and had very little live storage capacities.

Sources said that the level of water in the dams was kept below the full reservoir level to provide some cushion against sudden rise in inflow of water.

Since the 1960s Bhutan and India have established an effective flood information sharing system, whereby Bhutan notifies Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, and Barpeta and Nalbari in Assam, at regular intervals over HF radio sets on the water level in Bhutan.

Meanwhile, India is expected to import 5,000 MW of power from Bhutan by 2020.

By Rabi C. Dahal

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