photo: NHPC chairman-cum-managing director S K Garg and Technical Director S P SenItanagar: Allaying fears about possible damages to several big dams coming up in Arunachal Pradesh & Sikkim , located in a highly seismic zone, top officials of National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) have said they are so designed now that they seldom get damaged under the impact of a tremor.
Referring to the condition of dams in Jammu and Kashmir, post-2005 tremor, NHPC chairman-cum-managing director S K Garg and Technical Director S P Sen said here last week the dams could withstand the shock since the design took care of the tremor aspect.The NHPC top brass came here to sign MoUs with the State Government of Arunachal Pradesh for development of three hydropower projects.
Turning to the world scenario, Sen said one of the world’s largest dams was constructed in Kazakhstan right on the seismic fault which is much more dangerous than that in the North Eastern region of our country.Large dams were also constructed in seismically volatile regions in Turkey and Chile but no dam has either failed or been damaged because of earthquake, he said emphasising that modern designs take care of seismic factors though devising such designs are much more expensive.Sen said seismic observatories were functional at the sites of proposed mega hydro-projects of Arunachal Pradesh having a huge potential to produce 55,000 mw of hydel power and turn it into the powerhouse of the country.“The data collected by the observatories would be used as inputs for advance designing of the projects to be finally approved by the National Committee on Seismicity, a Central government undertaking”, he said.Some experts are also associated with international bodies working on dam safety designing, he said.Among other projects, NHPC has already spent Rs 1,700 crore on 2000 MW Lower Subansiri project in the Arunachal which is by far the biggest in the country and is likely to be commissioned in 2012.The 3,000 MW Dibang project is to be commissioned in ten years if things move as per the roadmap, and also implementing huge investment plans in similar line in Sikkim,Garg said.
(NorthEast News)
