Why it's time to question the very need for hydel power projects of any kind in India

By Shankar Sharma*
An opinion piece, ‘Dam(n) it, what’s wrong with India’s hydropower push?’, has raised a number of very serious concerns to our people from the large number of hydel power projects being planned and built in the country. Whereas, the issues have been raised many times in the recent past, civil society has not been able to persuade the concerned authorities, especially the Ministry of Power, Ministry of Environment, NITI Aayog, and PMO, to provide satisfactory clarification to any of these concerns.
Having raised serious concerns on social and environmental perspective for decades, and noticing the apathy/ callousness of our authorities on all these issues, it may be useful now for civil society groups to focus on a diligent analysis of costs and benefits (CBA) to the larger society instead of considering the costs only for the project developer, while also seeking such CBA for each of the credible alternative options to achieve the same project goal.
For example, if the peak load support is stated as the objective for a Pump Storage Project (PSP) proposal, we should seek an effectively prepared the CBA for each of the alternative options, such as BESS (battery energy storage system).
At the risk of repeating myself, as has been emphasised on multiple occasions, I also suggest that we should ask serious questions on the lack of demand side management measures, efficiency improvement, and energy conservation.
For example, effective actions to shift a large number of non-essential/ non-critical usage of electricity to day time hours will minimise the perceived need for most of such peak load power sources. Also needing a critical examination is the question as to why every single usage of electricity needs to be fed by the integrated grid?
A number of applications such as streetlights, decorative lights, night time sports events, school/ college building illumination, security lights, most of the commercial lightings applications etc. can be efficiently/ economically fed by isolated renewal energy (RE) power sources, such as roof top SPVs combined with local level BESS. All such feasible options when aggregated at the state level, can drastically bring down or even eliminate the need for PSPs.
As far as the very need for additional conventional hydel power plants are concerned, the global society has come far from the era when such hydel power plants were perceived as essential to maintain the system security; the same is not required anymore.

Just consider the cases of electricity supply scenarios in gulf nations, Australia, France etc. where the hydro potential is very low or nil. As, mentioned in the opinion piece above, the cost per unit of electricity from any additional hydel power plant is likely to be much higher than that from RE sources.

Hence, the time has come to question the very need for hydel power projects of any kind. Since, even our authorities cannot deny the deleterious impacts of hydel power plants on nature, civil society should strongly and persuasively advocate our societies to move away from hydel power plants of all kinds.

It is also a great irony that a number of BESS projects are also being tendered for in addition to PSPs in India. The primary question that needs to be asked at the highest level of the government is: if the large number of BESS projects, as is being planned/ built now, is believed to be essential/ useful, and techno-economically viable, why not have adequate number and magnitude of the same all over the grid to remove the need for hydel power plants?

All these issues and many more of true relevance to our country, could have been diligently discussed in an effective national energy policy, the draft of which came out in 2017. But our authorities seem to believe that such a policy document, which could have taken a holistic approach to the electricity demand/ supply scenario from the overall welfare perspective, is not necessary.

There is an urgent need for civil society groups to persuade the Union government to take such a holistic approach through a diligently prepared national energy policy.

---

*Power & Climate Policy Analyst

Comments

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria* As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.

The Galgotia model: How India is losing the war on knowledge

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Galgotia is the face of 'quality education' as envisioned by those who never considered education a tool for social change or national uplift — and yet this is precisely the model Narendra Modi pursued in Gujarat as Chief Minister. In the mid-eighties, when many of us were growing up, 'Nirma' became one of the most popular advertisements on Doordarshan. Whether the product was any good hardly seemed to matter.

Beyond the conflict: Experts outline roadmap for humane street dog solutions

By A Representative In a direct response to the rising polarization surrounding India’s street dog population, a high-level coalition of parliamentarians, legal experts, and civil society leaders gathered in the capital to propose a unified national framework for humane animal management. The emergency deliberations were sparked by a recent Suo Moto judgment that has significantly deepened the divide between animal welfare advocates and those calling for the removal of community dogs, a tension that has recently escalated into reported violence against both animals and their caretakers in states like Telangana.

Search This Blog