Editor,

The riverbed near Geku sits at an elevation of 240 m to 260 m above mean sea level. If you overlay a contour map in Google Earth, it becomes very apparent that a 300 m-high dam built at any point on the river would submerge all the human settlements along the riverbank upstream of the dam, up to the international border. The riverbed at the international border sits at an elevation of 560 m.

If you were to trace the terrain along the 560 m elevation, the reservoir water level, if the dam were to be built, would reveal the extent of the damage this project would entail: 200 sq km of submerged land - the whole of Geku and its farmland, the whole of Yingkiong and its farmland, a major chunk of Tuting, and that's not even counting the number of smaller villages.

In such a scenario, how does a PFR make sense to the affected villagers who are about to lose everything they have?

It is, however, difficult to overlook the hydropower potential of the Siang. A possible workaround could be multiple smaller projects along the length of the river. Three 100 m-high dams at different sites, each comparable in height to the dam of the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project, could easily have capacities of 2,000 MW, owing to the much greater water flow in the Siang than in the Subansiri.

I was able to trace the terrain for dams placed at three sites: an 80 m-high dam at a riverbed elevation of 240 m, with a reservoir level of 320 m; a 120 m-high dam at a riverbed elevation of 320 m, with a reservoir level of 440 m; and a 120 m-high dam at a riverbed elevation of 440 m, with a reservoir level of 560 m. This resulted in minimal submergence of useful land, while still yielding electricity. You can try this yourself in Google Earth.

The SUMP, in its current proposal, is untenable. I urge the whole of Arunachal to vehemently oppose the SUMP.

In the meantime, damming the Siang is the need of the hour. The world is moving towards greener and cleaner energy, not to mention the revenue and infrastructure development that come with it. I hope the authorities will pay heed to the opposition to the current project and come up with a more agreeable proposal, rather than remain stuck in a stalemate over a project that seems doomed to fail.

A citizen,

Itanagar