The central government has recently completed the construction of a large dam of the 'Sovanshiri hydroelectric plant' at Gerukamukh, ignoring strong objections from the Assamese people and mass protests by national parties.
This plant has a huge height of 160 meters with a power generation capacity of 2000 MW Power. The plant will start Generating power from August next year after completing the work on the dam. Union Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh made this announcement yesterday in Guwahati. The protest against the dam started in 2010.
At that time, the All Assam Students Union hold a mass struggle against the huge dam to be built in Assam. Under the leadership of non-political organizations like Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, Assam Nationalist Youth Students Council, etc. The BJP who was not in power then had also opposed the construction of a large river dam in Assam. ('Sovanshiri hydroelectric plant )at Gerukamukh
Rajnath Singh himself visited the river dam and announced that the construction of the river dam would come to an end if the BJP government was formed at the Centre in 2014. The agitation of the anti-dam movement in Assam spread to other sections of the country as well.
Medha Patekar, the lead of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, visited Assam and took a survey of the Gerukamukh river dam project. Later, the anger of the Assamese community intensified after the expert committee's report was published. The expert committee was set up by the then government itself.
The expert committee released the frightening aspects of the large dam. Though the government moved ahead ignoring all the warnings of the expert committee which consisted of a team of experts from various renowned academic institutes.
Protestors from various regions came together to aware people of the hazardous effect of the river dam project, one of the main reasons for the anti-dam protest was Assam being in the most earthquake-prone area.
The Northeast falls in the most seismic area in the entire country, known as 'Zone-5'. The Gerukamukh river dam project will not only hamper Assam but also Arunachal Pradesh. But, the BJP, which once agitated against the dam, came to power in 2014 and got up to finish the work of the dam. The dam was completed without taking into account the views of the people of Assam and their requests were ignored.
The movement that has been going on for so many years has not yielded any results. Who will pay the price for the time, suffering, and sacrifice of the students and the people of Assam? What will be the role of the party organization in Assam now after the union power minister's announcement yesterday?
The government has taken decisions by ignoring protests and public opinion of the people of Assam. It is the right of every citizen to make logical obstacles to what they think is dangerous. Now the question arises, is it ethical for the leaders of the various organizations to play with the safety and emotions of thousands of ‘ Akhomiyas’. |
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