Economic Times cited Indian Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti as saying to the National Ganga River Basin Authority that a committee involving Environment and Water Resources Ministry officials was requested to review the reports of three committees for hydropower projects on Ganga River.
The Supreme Court recently pulled up the government for delaying the decision on hydropower projects in the state.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat told the NGRBA during a meeting: "The two natural resources and strengths of the state are its forests and river water but both are closely linked to environment and heavily regulated. Thus the economy of the state gets severely affected, as the full potential of the state cannot be harnessed."
Meanwhile, the expert group urged to drop at least 23 hydropower projects, which played a major role in the Uttarakhand disaster, and recommended the need to urgently boost the hydropower projects’ environment governance.
