Hirakud... Another instance of Subterfuge

Power gerneration curbed to mislead people about surplus-ability of Hirakud reservoir.

On Thursday the mega Hirakud dam project with installed capacity of 347.5 megawatt (MW) produced an average of only 2.83 MW. This was the lowest energy produced among all major hydro-power units in the state. When the state is reeling under acute power scarcity, the dam authorities are in no mood to open the gates for power generation. This is not new and water release for power generation from the dam has been severely curtailed soon after the monsoon. In a matter of couple weeks in the month of October 2008, power generation from Burla and Chipilima units fell steeply from 270 MW to less than 50. 
Not many will evince interest whether Hirakud is producing energy or not as long as they get energy. The government is riding on this assumption to play a clever ploy to hide facts relating to capacity of Hirakud reservoir in meeting various demands. The dam management is under pressure to prove that there is enough water in the reservoir even after industrial consumption. In that pursuit, the dam authorities are trying their best to ensure that water level of the dam does not reach anywhere near the dead level. 

Is the mighty reservoir empty or is the government trying to prove (or hide) something in stealth? 
As on Thursday, the reservoir was still having 11.2 percent of its utilizable water left in it. Other dams with even less water were producing more energy. The Rengali dam was left with barely 1 percent of utilizable water but used more than twice as much of Hirakud for energy generation. Similarly, the Balimela reservoir - almost half the size of Hirakud - is left with mere 1 percent of utilizable water, but is using nearly as much as Hirakud.  

The Hirakud reservoir is clearly shunning one of its priority objectives to prove some false claims by the government that there is enough water in the reservoir for every user even if industries are allowed water. By trying to end the summer season with more than dead level water, the government wants to achieve two things. The first is to soothe the agitating farmers by showing that industrialisation does not dry the reservoir as is being feared and therefore farmers need not worry. The second is to allay water shortage fears of industrial houses – who are having second thoughts on entering Orissa now. The Hirakud reservoir has been the single most dominant source of industrial water allocation and any indication of water shortage in the reservoir is bound to affect the Government’s allurement. 

There is another angle on why the dam authorities are reluctant to release water even during the fag end of the summer season. The net storage of water is still calculated on an old assessment that the net utilisable storage of the reservoir is 3.9 Million Acre Feet. But this assessment has no value as net utilisable storage has come down to 3.7 MAF which has been mentioned in the high level technical committee report constituted two years ago. Three years ago even when the reservoir level was 10 ft higher than the dead level – the level beyond which water release is not possible – water could not be released to the second largest canal in the Hirakud system. Now the government fears that even if water level stays quite above the dead level, water may still not be released into the canals and intake wells of the industries may also go dry. 

That may be the reason of why the government is in no mood to take risk which may expose its claim of surplus water in the Hirakud because it knows very well that all its arguments will be null and void even if scarcity comes to light even for few hours. If that happen, the farmers will get fresh ammunition in their arm to raise their pitch further and industries will lose their interest in Orissa. Surely, the government wants neither to happen and hence the all out effort to keep water in the reservoir till the monsoon arrives in few days.

Whatever be the predicament, the government is playing to fool the people, especially the farmers and the industries. It is also blatantly violating the State Water Policy 2007 which gives higher priority to energy generation than industrial use. Thus, the government must come clean on this. The circumstances demand nothing less than a WHITE PAPER on Hirakud considering its great role in providing water for irrigation, energy production and industrialisation and also being the only source to control flood in the Mahanadi River system. Otherwise history will never forget one of the most unfortunate and unfair practice played by a government to hoodwink people into a belief that Hirakud has enough water. 

N.B.: This article was published in editorial page of Odia daily 'Dharitri'.