The disregard for rules that officials displayed in the run up to the public hearing of the 132 MW Teesta low dam project (TLDP), stage III in Kalimpong sub-division, West Bengal, would have been stunning had the hearing not been subsequently deferred.
The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) notified the public hearing on November 14, 2002 through local and national dailies. There was no mention of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report, but the Executive Summary (ES) of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was declared available to the public at the PCB's regional office in Siliguri and District Magistrate's office, Darjeeling. The hearing was scheduled for December 19, 2002 at Deorali Primary School, Teesta Valley.
For the next ten days the ES was unavailable at either of these two offices. Those who had managed to spot the obscure notification in the classified columns, were only given vague assurances that the document would "arrive soon". When the ES finally arrived at the PCB's Siliguri office, Mr. A. Basu, executive environmental engineer, blamed it on 'postal delay', as the headquarters supposedly had dispatched the documents in time. Interestingly, around November 24, a senior official of the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) at Siliguri had disclosed to this writer that the ES would be released "within a day or two."
After a local NGO started protesting about the non-availability of the EIA and absence of Nepali editions of the documents, things began to move. Around December 7, the ES was made available in Nepali, the language of the population that inhabits the Teesta catchment. On December 10, the EIA report arrived at the PCB's regional office.
This time, Mr. Basu was forthcoming. "The NHPC is responsible for the delay in the release of the EIA and the Nepali version. We presented it as soon as we received them," he asserted. This was challenged by the TLDP's Chief Engineer, Mr. S. Roy. "We had submitted the ES and the EIA in August 2002 to the WBPCB, Kolkata. How could they have notified the public hearing without receiving the documents?" It may be recalled that the North Bengal University, which had prepared the EIA and Environment Management Plan (EMP) had submitted its report to the NHPC only on August 5, 2002.
At the Darjeeling District Collectorate, officials maintained that the ES and the EIA had reached the office only "around November 28." But Mr. Hridyesh Mohan, District Magistrate, claimed that "the documents were available from day one". Local NGOs dismiss this claim.
It was clear that the officials were defending the indefensible. On December 16, the WBPCB threw in the towel, announcing a postponement of the hearing. "Due to unavoidable circumstances," the notice sheepishly read, "the public hearing for the Teesta low dam project, stage III, has been deferred from December 19, 2002 to January 3, 2003."
Until January 3, 2002, when the public hearing was eventually held, the EIA report was still unavailable in Nepali, despite four of the six locals on the public hearing panel being panchayat members. This led to some villagers demanding that the public hearing be postponed again. However, the hearing was held and the locals made several demands which underlined their deep distrust of the officials. Villagers from Suruk and Samthar, whom the NHPC had promised the use of the barrage as a bridge, wanted the assurance in writing on a stamped paper! Nespon, a Siliguri based-NGO, declared the hearing to be illegal, alleging that the WBPCB had violated the rules that govern a public hearing. Most of the locals who spoke cited past "bitter experiences" and doubted if the authorities would keep their promises of reaching the project's benefits to the people. They demanded that the rehabilitation of the affected people be carried out before the actual commencement of the project. And there were some who lamented that nobody had explained to them what a public hearing was all about!