Take what will happen to the Lohit, which flows out of Arunachal and into the Brahmaputra, when the Lower Demwe Hydro Electric Project on it switches on. According to the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, the Lohit’s flow is around 463 cubic metres per second (cumecs) in winter, 832 cumecs in summer and 2,050 in the rains. (A three cumecs flow is akin to a Tata Nano passing you every second.)

This will change once the dam comes up. For up to 20 hours a day, says the report, the dam will trap the river, releasing just 35 cumecs of water. The remaining will be released to spin the turbines only when demand for electricity rises in the evening. At that time, the river’s flow will expand to 1,729 cumecs. As the reservoir empties out, the river will again shrink to 35 cumecs. This is palpably new. River flows ebb and rise over months. “But now, what was an annual variation will now be a daily variation,” says MD Madhusudan, a biologist with Mysore-based Nature Conservation Foundation.

It is safe to say that the Arunachal Pradesh government has signed MoUs without bothering about the accompanying environmental costs of these projects. However, what is striking is that even the central environment ministry, the exalted MoEF, is indifferent to these fallouts. In today’s story, after a brief overview to the environmental fallouts of these projects, we talk to a senior member of the hydel EAC (Expert Appraisal Committee, the body which clears hydel projects) to understand why these projects are not getting the scrutiny they deserve.