• Arunachal Pradesh, with its many fast-flowing mountain rivers, is posited as the “power house” of India.
  • Since 2007, the Arunachal Pradesh government has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with public and private investors for about 140 big dams, 66 of which were later cancelled.
  • In a world of drastically altered realities brought about by global warming, big dams are already yesterday’s story.
  • Dams on the Himalayan rivers are especially dangerous because the region is seismically active.
  • Arunachal has a long history of anti-dam protests, which raged from 2008 to 2013.
  • The 2,000-MW Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project (SLHP), which is under construction at Gerukamukh on the Assam-Arunachal border, was recently in the news when one of its guard walls collapsed on September 24 following heavy rain in Arunachal and Assam.
  • Other hydropower schemes that have met with protests are the 2,880-MW Dibang Multipurpose Project (DMP) and the Etalin project, both in the Dibang Valley.
  • Experts affirm that these two mega dams will lead to the dilution of the indigenous culture of the Indu Mishmis and Adis and the destruction of nearly 3,00,000 trees in the biodiverse, carbon-rich, old-growth forests of Dibang Valley.