In a significant submission to the Supreme Court, the Union government has said that no new hydroelectric projects should be permitted in the upper reaches of the Ganga in Uttarakhand, with the Ministries of Environment, Jal Shakti and Power presenting a single, restrictive position to the court.

In a common affidavit filed on May 19, the three Ministries stated that apart from seven hydroelectric projects already commissioned or substantially built, the government “is not in favour of permitting any other new hydro-electric project in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river basin in the upper reaches of the River Ganga in the State of Uttarakhand”. The hardened stand is notable for the Power Ministry’s concurrence; as recently as November 2024, through a committee, it had argued for as many as eight projects.

The seven projects cleared will have a total capacity of just over 2,150 MW and include some of the State’s largest. They are the 1,000 MW Tehri pumped-storage project on the Bhagirathi; the 520 MW Tapovan Vishnugad on the Dhauliganga, damaged by the February 2021 Rishiganga flood; the 444-MW Vishnugad Pipalkoti on the Alaknanda; the 99 MW Singoli Bhatwari and 76 MW Phata Byung on the Mandakini; and two small projects, the Madhmaheshwar and Kailganga-II. Four are already commissioned while the remaining three are 74% to 80% complete. The government’s rationale for letting these continue is that they have absorbed substantial public and private investment, none falls within the Bhagirathi Eco-Sensitive Zone, and none was flagged by the expert bodies. Halting them now would strand sunk costs without commensurate environmental gain, it said.

In August 2024, the Supreme Court constituted the committee chaired by Cabinet Secretary T.V. Somanathan, with the three Secretaries and Uttarakhand’s Chief Secretary as members, directing it to give due consideration to Expert Body-II’s findings and place the Centre’s reasoning on record. The committee — whose recommendations have only become public with the affidavit — narrowed 21 projects under consideration to five: Bowala Nandprayag, Devsari, Bhyundar Ganga, Jhalakoti and Urgam-II, concluding that “the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and in balance it would be in national interest to go ahead with these 5 projects.”

The Centre has now declined to accept even those five, citing the cumulative impact of “bumper-to-bumper” dams, seismic fragility, and a string of disasters, including the 2013 cloudburst and the Dharali flash flood of August 2025, that left the foundational concerns of the 2013 judgment “fully subsisting.” The matter is listed for hearing on May 20.

Also read: Four hydro projects violate Ganga flow norms: Central Water Commission

“This is a wise and welcome step from the government that came out after more than a decade of wait and several expert recommendations,” Mallika Bhanot, an environmental activist and part of the Bhagirathi Eco-sensitive Zone monitoring committee, told The Hindu.

The case originates in the Kedarnath floods of June 2013, which killed at least 5,000 people. Halting hydel development in the State, the Supreme Court directed the Environment Ministry to examine the role such projects played in amplifying the disaster. A 17-member committee led by environmentalist Ravi Chopra — Expert Body-I — concluded in 2014 that 23 of 24 projects examined would have severe impact on the ecology of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins. A second panel under Vinod Tare of IIT-Kanpur, examining six developers’ projects, found they “may not be taken up” in their present form pending review.

The Environment Ministry then set up Expert Body-II under B.P. Das, who had dissented from the earlier findings. After studying 70 projects, Expert Body-II in March 2020 took a markedly more permissive view, recommending 26 for implementation with design modifications to others. The Centre, however, only ever accepted seven — a gap from the expert recommendation that was never fully explained on the official record.

Activists and several intervenors have pressed the court to stop even these. Representations before the Somanathan committee, including from Matri Sadan and the campaigner Bharat Jhunjhunwala, argued that the projects amplify flood risk and that work should cease regardless of how advanced it is — a position the Jal Shakti Ministry itself once echoed when it opposed new projects “whatever may be the status of construction”. The Tapovan Vishnugad project, twice battered by floods while under construction, is frequently cited by critics as evidence that even cleared projects remain dangerously exposed in a warming Himalaya.

The Uttarakhand government, a power-deficit State that spends over ₹1,000 crore annually purchasing electricity, has consistently backed EB-II and favoured all recommended projects, offering the court fallback options of 14 or nine. The Jal Shakti Ministry’s opposition has its own lineage: as the Water Resources Ministry under Uma Bharti, it was the original opponent of dams on the Ganga, before the renamed Ministry, by 2019, settled on accommodating only the seven advanced projects.