“Oh Umngot! You must not remain only a memory,” was the slogan echoing through parts of Meghalaya last week.
Tides of protests in people of the Khasi community have been bubbling for weeks to protect the crystal-clear waters
of the river Umngot. Flowing through the hills of the East Khasi region, the Umngot River is being proposed as a location for a new 210 MW hydroelectric project. Citizens of over a dozen villages in the region feel that if the dam comes up, it will threaten their livelihood and cause harm to the environment, but will especially harm the waters of the Umngot River, which is considered to be the cleanest river in India. The dam, proposed upstream in the adjoining West Jaintia Hills District is facing stiff resistance. On Friday, April 9, for instance, a public hearing organised by the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited was stormed by over one hundred protestors who claimed that the proposed dam would harm their tourism-based livelihood. Organised at the Moosakhia Village in the West Jaintia Hills District, this was the second meeting disrupted by protestors. The first one that was scheduled to be held at Siangkhnai Village on Thursday was cancelled after protestors sat on the road and refused to allow public officials’ cars to pass.
Several landowning families in the East Khasi Hills district are opposing the dam on the impression that the proposed dam would submerge their cultivable land. Official documents of the project say that residents of 13 villages along the river may end up losing 296 hectares of land due to submergence.
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The initial survey for the hydroelectric power project kicked off in 2007. The North East Slow Food & Agrobiodiversity Society that has been working with local community of Umsawwar in the East Khasi Hills says that if the dam is constructed, it would go against the Articles 25, 26, 31, and 32 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indegenious Peoples, of which India is also a signee. They further add that the proposed dam would bring about a negative impact in the lives of the local communities.
