Overview

• The Environment Ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee granted environmental clearance, requiring GLOF-inclusive design floods, a real-time early warning system, community drills and a five-year post-commissioning environmental study.
• The run-of-the-river scheme includes a 100-metre concrete gravity dam, a 14.12 km headrace tunnel and an underground powerhouse, with an estimated cost of Rs 24,942 crore and expected annual generation of 8,402 million units.
• The project entails diversion of 750 hectares of forest land with about 43 hectares to be submerged, and official documents list nine families for displacement in a predominantly tribal area.
• A September 2024 public hearing recorded local demands for fair compensation and a share of electricity, along with concerns over fisheries, ecology and sacred sites.
• The EAC noted that the Subansiri basin’s CIA and CCS were completed in 2014 and are over a decade old, yet it accepted the developer’s submissions after deliberation as environmental groups warned of seismic and flood risks in the region.